Guyon Espiner

But if Putin is a man whose leadership style owes a lot to the Soviet model, it's important to understand just how far the political ideology that underpins his government has changed.

And that element of sympathy from a far-right Russian regime intent on undermining the Western liberal democratic order and the President of the United States, the man ultimately in charge of the CIA.

Yeah, I mean, that is worth examining.

This is Susan Miller again, talking about the 2016 US presidential election.

This is from the PBS NewsHour, July 31, 2025.

But that wasn't going to last for long.

There are a lot of claims and counterclaims about President Trump and Russia that we won't get into here, from the Steele dossier to the FBI-led Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Trump's extraordinary summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018, and the Mueller report.

But basically, Trump's point is that there's nothing to see here.

It's all a hoax.

So, one day, a couple of years into the first Trump presidency, Susan Miller gets a call.

She says a friend is warning her.

Susan Miller and others from the American intelligence community have been repeatedly targeted for reporting on the level of foreign influence from Russia.

Trump's Attorney General William Barr appointed a federal prosecutor, John Durham, to investigate the Trump-Russia investigation.

Yeah, they've never been able to make anything stick against her, but that hasn't stopped the persecution.

Susan Miller left the agency after 40 years and began working as a government contractor.

Until something strange happened.

Yeah.

The other thing that's quite important is your security clearance.

How concerned are you about the impact of Trump on the intelligence apparatus of the United States?

We've seen from these stories of double or even triple agents that it's hard to know what's really inside anyone's head.