04x05 - Hunting GRAYSUIT: America's Deadliest Traitor Part 1

[bunniefuu]

- We knew
that there was still a mole

who had not been identified.

- Our nation, our free society,

is an international target,
in a dangerous world.

- They said,
"We want you to go undercover

in FBI headquarters
to catch him."

- The espionage operations

designed to steal vital
secrets of the United States

are as intense today
as they have ever been.

- This is a big case,
there is no getting out.

He told me,
"You could make a fortune

by dropping that to a foreign
intelligence agency."

- If he determines
that you betrayed him,

he would commit
violence against you.

- He's armed.
He has a g*n.

- This wasn't just a spy,
it was the spy.

- Oh, my God,
the mole is an FBI agent.

In the FBI
we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings...

...t*rror1st takedowns.

We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.
- Freeze!

- FBI.
- FBI!
- Action!

But they don't know
the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other

when we're talking
agent to agent.

This is FBI True.

- We're in Washington, D.C.

Spy capital of the world.

Where you worked on

one of the most important cases
in American spy history.

- I lived right over there.

I was working for the FBI,
working undercover,

newly married.

I worked counterintelligence
and counterterror.

So I was part of the S.S.G.,
A.K.A. The Ghosts.

I would follow
either a spy or a t*rror1st,

track them and investigate them.

- So it's the weekend,
you have some downtime,

and your life is about
to change forever.

- I was asleep in this
apartment over here.

Juliana and I had been married
three months at the time,

and I got a phone call
early on a Sunday morning.

And it was Gene McClelland,
supervisory special agent

out of the Washington field
office for my entire team
of ghosts.

So my boss.
- Right.

- In fact, like my boss's boss.

And I said, "Okay, Gene,
let me get dressed.
I'll come downtown."

And he says,
"I'm parked right outside."

- What are you thinking?

- I'm thinking
I'm in a lot of trouble.

- Well, absolutely, because,
I mean, let's face it, the FBI,

the only time people get
an invitation to come outside
the house and talk to us

is if we're going to arrest you.

- When I arrived on the Russian
espionage squad in 2000,

they were actively
searching for a mole.

- How did you get to Washington?

- Four years with
counterintelligence

and one year with
Russian organized crime.

- So you arrive in D.C.

What's the situation?

- There were multiple US persons

from various intelligence
agencies

who were arrested for espionage.

- The FBI says Randy Jeffries
sold government secrets
to the Soviets.

If that sounds familiar,
it should.

Randy Jeffries is the 11th
American this year arrested
in an espionage case.

- ...but all of those
arrests didn't really account

for all of the sources
that were wrapped up.

One of those sources
who was neutralized

had the code name Top Hat.

- Top hat was a Russian general.

His name was Dmitri Polyakov.

He was recruited and worked for

US intelligence
for approximately 17 years.

No one at the time
knew exactly what happened

or why or how he was given up.

And that was always a mystery.

He risked his life not
for money but for his ideals.

And the CIA director said
Top Hat kept the Cold w*r
from heating up.

But Top Hat was eventually
arrested by the Russians...

...for his work
with the US government.

It was said that he was
ex*cuted with a g*nsh*t
to the back of the head

and his body
was never found.

Like, what's going on?

Do we have a mole
in the US government

that's working for the Russians?

So we knew that there was
still a mole out there

who had not been identified.

The case was given
the codename Graysuit.

Actually, this is
the most difficult part

of this case
for me to talk about.

It's because we're talking
about sources and methods,

and we're literally talking
about lives of individuals.

But we paid a source
for information to help us

find the mole working for
the United States government.

I believe it was
close to 7 million.

It was a lot of money.

The most jarring piece
of evidence we got was
a secret audio tape

that we hoped would lead us to
the identification of the mole.

It was a phone call between
a Russian individual

and an unknown male.

Around 5 a.m., I received
a call from the analyst,

and he said, "I need you
to come into the office."

And I said, "I'll be right in."

The analyst had worked
for the individual.

Knew him personally,

knew the way he spoke.

So he writes
the identity of the mole

on a 3x5 card,

and he takes that card
over to headquarters,

where another analyst
was sitting.

The two of them listened to
the recording of the phone call.

They both recognize the
previously unknown individual

on that recording.

And when he finished,

I had no doubt
that he was correct.

The mole was a highly placed
FBI Agent

who could do a lot of damage.

- Okay.
So you get dressed...

- Shaken. Heart pounding.
I walked out the door.

I'm checking the corners.
I'm looking up and down
the street,

and I look across the street,

and there's Gene, my boss.

I walked over.
I got in the car next to him.

He puts the windows up.

What the hell
is happening right now?

He told me that
this was a decorated agent,

a supervisory special agent,

somebody who they
suspected of espionage.

He told me that they wanted me
to go undercover

and he says, "Have you ever
heard of a guy named
Robert Hanssen?"

I said, "No."

He said, "Good, because we
don't want you to ghost him.

We want you to go undercover

in FBI headquarters
to catch him.

Where does he go?
Who's he meeting with?

What kind of data
is he trying to access?"
Anything I could see.

I asked him,
"Do I get a legend?

How am I going undercover here?"

And he said, "No, you have
to go in as yourself.

We believe he's able to
penetrate computer systems.

So what happens if
he learns your identity?"

So I felt uncomfortable.

- Did you understand
that you had the ability

to say, "No, I don't think
I should do this."

- I felt like Gene was giving me
a choice until he said,

"Look, Eric,
I've got to know right now

if you're in or out.
Not tomorrow, not next week,
right now.

Because my next
meeting is downtown

with the Director of the FBI,

and he wants to know
if you're in or out.

I'm thinking, "The director
of the FBI knows who I am?"

Of all the agents in the Bureau,

they chose me
to be the eyes and ears

of the FBI inside
an elaborate mouse trap.

What are you supposed
to say to that?

- "I'm in."
- I said, "I'm in."

- The decision was made
to create a job for Hanssen.

- Deborah, what did you
think of that idea?

If you're near
the end of your career,

you didn't apply
for a promotion,

but you're given a promotion...

...and it just
doesn't ring true.

I felt that it would
cause suspicion

and my biggest fear
is that he would bolt.

- What are some of the assets
and players we brought
into that?

- We needed someone who
Hanssen wouldn't know.

So someone maybe fairly new
to act as his assistant.

And that's where Eric O'Neill
came into play.

The FBI is giving us
rare access

to film inside Headquarters,

where the spy
hunt went down.

So Eric, your first day coming
into the Hoover Building,
what's that like?

- It was early in December 2000

and I come in to the 9th floor
and meet Rich Garcia.

- And Rich, do you remember
that moment when you met Eric?

- I do. I was fighting H.R.

because they said we have
qualified people in our building

to put in there with Hanssen,

and I couldn't tell them
why I needed Eric.

- So the only two people

that I knew were Rich Garcia
and my handler.

She would debrief me, she would
give me different tasks,

Rich was right down the hall.

So we converted
this two-room office.

- He brought me into this room
that was at that point
just a skeleton.

There were barely walls.
There was all this tech.

There were wires everywhere.

And he says, "This is where
you're going to be working."

- What kind of assets are we
putting in to help us out?

We were getting
various technology

to capture a conversation
and video.

We had to move the wiring from
that floor down to lower floors,

where we had a monitoring room.

- So the job
that you're now walking into,

what kind of job is this?

- I was told that Hanssen's been
exploiting computer systems

and because I had
a background in computers,

they put me on the case.

- Hanssen was going to retire

that following year
in April, mandatory.

And so we were concerned,
investigative-wise,

that he was going to leave
before we had evidence

in order to convict him
and arrest him.

So we had to create a job,

enough of a carrot
to keep him around.

It's a new job

because we have antiquated
computer systems at the time,

we were in the process
of renovating all these systems,

but we weren't there yet.

- So Robert Hanssen, he was
in charge of the Analytic Unit,

- Correct. Those analysts
were looking for the mole.

- So being that
he was the bad guy,

seeing some
of the investigative results

of some of the investigations,

looking for a variety of moles
to include himself,

he would have access
to see that.

- It increased
the complexity tremendously.

So he knew the players,
he knew the Russian players.

He knew how they operated.

He knew how to investigate
the cases. He knew a lot.

- So Rich is your new boss.

What does he tell you
your job is?

- The first was,
"Don't screw up."

Number two was to gain
Hanssen's trust.

If I didn't gain his trust,
then he was never going to
talk to me.

And I had this other task I was
supposed to do that I really
didn't want to do,

which was make him angry,

we want to see how he reacts
when he's stressed.

- Day one, you walk in
the office for your new job.

- He comes strolling in.
Doesn't even say a word to me.

Goes in his office
and shuts the door.

He was a very large man,

a lot taller than me
and physically imposing.

And after a few minutes,
I thought, "I got to talk
to this guy."

- You gotta say hi.

- I sat down across
the desk from him

and he told me,
"I didn't tell you could sit."

- Oh.
- And that was our relationship.

I tried to fumble into
a conversation.

He stops me,
throws a legal pad over at me,

and he asks me to write down
my name, my address,

my Social Security number.
And then he said,
"While you're at it,

put your parent's names there.

You're married, right?
Your wife's name,

her Social Security number,
her birth date."

What's he trying to do?

Is he trying to challenge me?

Or is he testing me?
- We have the room wired,

and you're listening
to everything.

How's that going?
Is the system working
like we thought it should?

- Uh, no.

His voice was very low,

so it was hard to pick up
sometimes on the microphone.

It was very difficult because

the systems that they put in
were there;

and to change it would be very
disruptive and suspicious.

- How do we capture
what he's saying?

- I became a human
recording device.

So I started to learn how
Hanssen did what he did

by talking to him about how
we could fix cybersecurity.

- He's talking about ACS system.

Tell me what he told you about

the ACS system
and the failures of the Bureau.

- It was a system
to track cases,

and one of the big ideas

is it would have
interconnectivity
with other agencies.

And the way he said it is,

"I can start typing in
names of individuals,

addresses of individuals.

And if it comes back in the ACS
system Xed out,

it means
there's an open case."

He said that you could use it
to find spies.

You could use it to find
investigations into spies.

And then if you learned that
information, you could drop it.

Even though you can't see
the information,

he said,
"You could make a fortune

by dropping that to a foreign
intelligence agency."

Essentially,
what Hanssen was doing

was telling me how
you could exploit the ACS system

if you were a spy
and make a ton of money from it.

And he says, "I want to tell you
the only thing you need to know

to be a successful
counterintelligence agent.

The spy is in the worst
possible place."

Why the hell
is he telling me this?

He's clearly trying
to play me but how?

And he says,
"The spy is that person

who has access
to the information

that will do the most damage

and the knowledge
and the wherewithal

to get that in the hands
of those who will pay
the most for it.

And that, Eric, is what
we are here to defend against."

I'm thinking,
"I'm in FBI headquarters.

This is the worst possible
place for a spy."

- How complex did that make
doing a criminal matter

when the subject
is right in your house?

- We didn't know
how much Hanssen knew

about what we were doing.

So we had to find out,

what is he doing
in our computer system?

What is he following?

Has he been reading about
the other cases?

- How much surveillance support
did we use in this case?

- We had physical surveillance
and we had technical
surveillance both for 24/7.

We had to go out and brief
the surveillance teams

and let them know.
"If you know Robert Hanssen
or if there's any

chance that he knows
you or your face,

you will not work this case.
He's armed.

He has a g*n.
We know he's trained to use it."

So we had to designate
him as 'A and D'.

So that meant that
for each surveillance shift,

an agent with a g*n
had to be on that shift.

And there were over 300
people who worked it.

- How is this one different
besides the fact that
it was an FBI agent?

- An espionage investigation
can go on for years.

This case,
we didn't have that luxury.

We didn't know whether
or not he was still active.

Is he still committing espionage
or has he is he just

on ice and not
doing anything right now?

And that was one
of the burning questions.

Hanssen
was a control freak.

He had to maintain control

and he wanted me
to react to him.

I had a desk in the main area

and he had a separate smaller
office right off that.

And there was one time I was
working on something for him
on my laptop,

and he came around behind me,
he put his hands on my shoulders

in a real creepy way,
sort of leaned his chest
against my back.

And If you look here,
this is my desk here, right?

This is a pit area.
There was never going
to be anyone here.

- Right.
- Here's my desk.

I've surrounded
my desk with chairs.

I actually moved a file cabinet
and a computer stand

to make it impossible for him
to come around behind me.

- So what did we learn about
Hanssen's lifestyle?

- We learned that there was
some deviancy there
with Hanssen.

For instance, with his
friend Jack Hoschouer,

Jack would visit their home

and Hanssen would,

you know,
allow or tell Jack, basically,

where to stand
outside of the home

so he could watch Hanssen
and his wife together.

He set up a feed in a room
that Jack stayed in

so that he could
also watch them together.

- So when you say that he set up
a feed so that Jack could watch

he and his wife together,

do you mean sexually?
- Yes, I do mean sexually, yes.

- Does his wife know about this?
- His wife did not know.

We learned too

that Hanssen befriended
a dancer, a stripper...

...Priscilla Sue Galey.

Both say that it was not
a sexual relationship,

but he purchased
certain things for her.

He gave her money
to fix her teeth.

He gave her a used
Mercedes Benz.
He gave her a credit card.

He was on inspection, what we
call inspection at the time.

And they'd go out and inspect
different areas of the FBI.

- He took her on a trip abroad.
- So I just want to clarify.

Robert Hanssen took his stripper
friend on an inspection mission?

- Yes.

He went to church
during the day,

and then he would stop
and see Priscilla

in the evening
on his way home from work.

So he betrayed everything
and everyone.

He was not loyal to anyone.

- There was another time I was
sitting in one of the chairs
in front of my desk,

and he comes over and he puts
his leg up on the armrest
of the chair.

So then I'm staring
right at his crotch.

And I just got up

and I moved away and I'm like,
"What are you doing?"

So I think a lot
of this was power.

That's what
it seems like.

It seems like he was constantly
invading your personal space,

physically
and emotionally as well.

- He was particularly interested
in my personal life,

in my marriage,
in why my wife and I,

even though we had been married,
what, four months at the time,

didn't have children yet,

about my religion,
about how I was disobeying

the precepts of my religion
by not getting my wife pregnant.

I remember coming in once,

and he's at my desk,
on my phone.

I said,
"Who are you talking to?"

And he said, "Oh, I'm having
a conversation with Juliana,"

my wife, and I remember
feeling so angry.

It was visceral,
it was a gut check.

So as we're collecting evidence
for the criminal case,

what are some of the things
we want ideally to get?

- We knew he was writing notes
on this Palm Pilot.

- Hanssen had a routine where
he kept the thing in his back
pocket all the time.

Always one back left pocket.
Any time he sat down,

he'd pull it out of his pocket
and put it in his bag.

And I thought, there has to
be information on here.

He's never separated from it.

He talks about it
more than his children,

and he's told me that
he's written the encryption
on it himself.

- Is there a possibility that
he's going to leave it behind

if he has to go someplace?

- We used everything that
we learned about Hanssen.

He was a narcissist.

So, being challenged meant that
he had to show superiority

and he really loves to sh**t.

And we came up
with this idea that

Rich and the assistant director,

were going to come in
unannounced.

- So we set up a firearms sh**t,
at FBI headquarters.

We have a range in the basement.

- So they interrupt him
and they literally

slap $20 on his desk and said,
"You and me at the range now.

And I bet you that $20,
I can beat you."

- And what was Hanssen's
reaction to that?

Because now you're picking
him up and you're like,
"Let's go, Sparky."

- So now he's mad. He grabs his
ear protection, eye protection,

he holsters his firearm,
he gets up and he stumbles off
after them.

And for the first time,
he forgets that Palm Pilot.

- We knew Hanssen had
a lot of interest in g*ns
and weapons like that.

And he always
wanted to challenge me
in the sh**ting competition

because he figured that
he's got to do something

to show
that he's superior to me.

- So he's out of the office.

What are you up to?

- The Palm Pilot was in his bag,
right? It was a Palm 3X.

- Wow.

- I go to his bag.

There are four
identical pockets.

I open all four
and I find the PalmPilot,

but I also find
a data card and a floppy disk.

Remember, we're going back
to 2001 at this point.
- Oh, yeah.

- My heart is pounding.
I'm really excited.

I really wanted
to get this thing.

I believe that the information
we wanted was on it.

So I just grabbed all three
things, decided I don't have
a lot of time,

ran down three flights of stairs
where Rich had set up
a tech room

where these computer techs
were just ready for
whatever I brought down,

any level of encryption.

They hooked up the devices
and said, "Yes, it is encrypted.

We're just going to copy it now

and we'll break
the encryption later."

- Right.
- I could literally see

they're using a program
called Norton Ghost.

They're cloning it.
And I see the 83%.

And I get a text
on my pager saying

'out of pocket coming to you'.

They kick me out of the room.

They're like,
"You're disrupting us."

So I knock on the door.
I'm like, "I'm going to
need those devices."

And they're like,
"We're almost done."

I said, "You don't understand.
He's armed. I'm not. He's angry.

And if I don't get up there
before him, he's going
to sh**t me!"

Next time
on FBI True.

- This wasn't just a spy.
It was the spy.

- The information that he gave
caused irreparable damage
to the US government.

- This is a big case.
There is no getting out.

- He caused the death of three
sources by giving up their
identities.

He did leave a mark
on the Foxstone Park sign

to let the Russians know
that he's made a drop.

- If Hanssen determines
that you betrayed him,

he would commit
violence against you.

- He grabs me by the lapel.
He lifts me up onto my toes.

- Did he have a weapon on him?
Would he try to use it?

- There's no way
I got this right.

The odds are impossible.