Report: Clinton Ally Targeted by Russian Spies

A close political ally of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believes he was the target of one of the ten alleged Russian spies arrested in the U.S.

Alan Patricof, the former finance chairman of Clinton’s Senate campaign, confirmed that the woman known as Cynthia Murphy had worked on his account at a New York finance firm.

According to the FBI complaint filed in New York on the arrests, which were the result of a ten-year investigation, Murphy had been told to get close to a New York-based financier described as a fundraiser “for a major political party” who is “a personal friend” of a Cabinet member.

“Try to build up little by little relations with him moving beyond just (work) framework,” said an intercepted communication from the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR.

Patricof, a leading Democrat Party fundraiser, said he believed he was the “prominent New York financier” referred to in the intercepted communications..

“It’s just staggering,” Patricof told Politico. “It’s off the charts.”

Patricof said that he had “never discussed anything but paying the bills and taxes” with Murphy.

“She never once asked me about government, politics or anything remotely close to that subject,” Patricof said.

Barbara Morea, the president of the Manhattan tax accounting and financial advertising firm Morea Financial Services confirmed that Murphy had been a long-time employee and vice-president of the company.

She was arrested with a man posing as her husband Richard in their home in Montclair, New Jersey, where neighbors expressed astonishment that the pair, who they described as “suburbia personified”, have been accused of spying.

Continue reading at The Times of London