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CIA and Moscow terror, Havana Syndrome, rogue diplomat Ric Grenell, Paul Manafort’s return, a creepy Army Psyops recruiting ad & more

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60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley promises significant new information on Havana Syndrome. Here a former FBI agent describes how she fell ill. More on this below.

Kremlin Etiquette: The CIA won’t be getting any public thank yous from Russia for the agency’s timely and accurate warning of an imminent terror attack that left more than 140 people dead.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow on March 7 issued a warning  that “extremists” had “imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts.”  The CIA station in Moscow earlier delivered a private warning to Russian officials that the threat involved an offshoot of the Islamic State known as ISIS-K, The New York Times reported.  

“On March the 7th, at 11:15 in the morning, Moscow time, following normal procedures and through established channels that have been employed many times previously, the United States government passed a warning in writing to Russian security services,” White House spokesman John Kirby said Thursday. It was one of many warnings the U.S. government has passed to Russia since September 2023 about various threats. 

ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the March 22 attack on a concert hall outside Moscow.  

But Russia, a country where the facts don’t matter, now says they had help from Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who earlier dismissed the CIA warnings as “outright blackmail,”  pointed a finger at Kyiv. Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, quickly followed up and said America and Britain also helped. 

Kirby called that “nonsense” and said ISIS-K was solely responsible.  

So why bother to warn ? Why deliver a tip about a terrorist plot to an adversary who then tblames the United States?  We have a “duty to warn,” says former CIA case officer Laura Thomas. It also sends a not-too-subtle message to our adversaries about the CIA’s knowledge and values.