Former spooks told Business Insider that Rudy Giuliani's role in a widely discredited New York Post story and President Donald Trump's willingness to seize on it highlights how vulnerable they are to being duped by Russian intelligence.

Giuliani's access to Trump, the two men's personality traits, their eagerness to obtain dirt on the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and unwillingness to acknowledge Russian interference makes them a goldmine for foreign intelligence services, former spies said.
They are "grotesquely vulnerable, exploitable targets" and "any foreign intelligence service would be derelict if they did not try to exploit this," said a former CIA covert operative.

"This is the most recent edition of what we've seen over four years now with the Trump administration," Steve Hall, the former chief of Russia operations at the CIA, told Business Insider. He compared Giuliani to former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was one of Trump's most active surrogates during the 2016 campaign.

"Flynn considered himself the smartest guy in the room and believed the rules didn't apply to him because he was close to the president," Hall said. "Giuliani has the same general profile because he's also someone who thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, politically. And he has protection from the Trump administration. That's exactly the kind of personality that Russian intelligence services would look to take advantage of."

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