Spooky Timing
By: emptywheel Sunday July 11, 2010 8:29 am
TweetTweet20 Share
digg stumbleupon
I assume this is a coinkydink. But oh what a coinkydink it is.
June 5: Mikhail Semenko’s laptop chats with Russian Official #2 surveilledJune 9: Chapman’s laptop chats with Russian Official #1 surveilled
June 11: Obama briefed about Russian spy swap
June 13: Tretyakov dies
June 16: Chapman’s laptop chats with Russian Official #1 surveilled
June 18: Obama chairs NSC meeting on Russian spy swap
June 24: Obama and Dmitri Medvedev go to Ray’s Hell Burger
June 25: Complaint against 9 spies dated
June 26: FBI collects evidence against last two remaining spies; FBI agent says to Chapman, “I know you are going back to Moscow in two weeks.”
June 27: Spies arrested
June 29: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complains about timing of arrest; Obama reported to be miffed about timing of arrest; DOJ attributes timing to pending travel–presumably Chapman’s
Week of July 5: White House almost cancels spy swap because names of proposed spies in Russia leaked
July 8: Spy swap completed
July 10: Two weeks after FBI Agent said Chapman would be traveling to Russian in two weeks; Tretyakov’s death reported
The family may have withheld news of Tretyakov’s death by the heart problem he had had his entire life, but the delay also happened to have delayed news of his death until the spying activity he was originally part of was–at a minimum–exposed as part of this spy sting. And note the meetings involving President Obama on arresting the illegals and conducting the spy swap happened within a week before and after his Tretyakov’s death.
So maybe it’s not such a coinkydink after all…
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/07/11/spooky-timing/