Indicted alleged Chinese agent Gal Luft celebrated with one of his China-connected contacts when James Woolsey, a close contact of Luft, joined Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, later discussing how they should use his “‘close’ China link as a weapon of last resort” to extort him if he got a position in national security in the administration after the election, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake reports.
In September 2016, Luft and his contact exchanged emails in which he said, “We nailed it!” after Woolsey joined Trump’s campaign. Two months later, on November 13th, after Trump’s unlikely victory, they discussed a potential next move for Woolsey: “Our friend is now on the shortlist of the following: Sec Def[,] Sec homeland security [, and] Dir nat intel.” The person responded: “This side would like to see him assuming something with a ‘China’ profile. Of the three, S of D [Secretary of Defense] or DNI [Director of National Intelligence] would be good, esp the former.”
Rolling Stone’s Seth Hettena reports soon after that second email, Luft signed Woolsey to a $72,000 contract for Luft’s US-based thinktank, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. Woolsey ultimately did not get a position in the Trump Administration already crowded with alleged foreign agents in the national security ranks thanks to Mike Flynn.