A C-17 Globemaster left Joint Base Andrews on Aug. 25, routed by way of Riga, Latvia, and landed in Moscow. CIA Director John Ratcliffe was aboard and spent about eight hours there. The Kremlin says he did not meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. President Donald Trump called the trip semi-routine.

What Ratcliffe carried there is known to the people who were in the room. Everything printed since is inference. I spent 12 years in Georgia’s state security, defense, and interior ministries working against Russian operations, and I know how such conversations surface: years late, or never.