American Scandal Wondery

In 1976, at the height of the Cold War, Robert Hanssen joins the FBI to work in their counterintelligence division. Hanssen is valued for his technical skills, and put in charge of databases containing some of the country’s most valuable secrets. But he’s socially awkward, and constantly passed up for promotions and field work, leaving him resentful of his employers. Soon, he decides to turn to another source of income: selling information to his country’s greatest enemy, the Soviet Union. Over the course of several decades, he’ll become one of the most damaging spies in US history. 

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Realizing there’s a spy in their midst, the FBI and CIA reluctantly agree to join forces, and launch a joint investigation to ferret out the mole. But they unwittingly put Robert Hanssen in charge of a crucial aspect of the case, enabling him to throw them off the scent as he continues selling secrets to the KGB. 

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By the 1990s, Robert Hanssen has been spying on and off for more than a decade. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he decides to break off contact with his Russian handlers. But his urge to spy is too great, and soon he revives his alter ego “Ramon” — unaware that a former KGB agent has just given the FBI a huge break in their effort to finally track him down.  

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In 2001, Robert Hanssen’s spy career comes to a crashing halt after he’s arrested in the middle of a handoff to the Russians. It’s a massive win for the FBI, but not without its own fallout. FBI director Louis Freeh still needs to explain to the American public how Hanssen was able to go undetected for so long. Meanwhile, to avoid a death sentence, Hanssen agrees to cooperate with authorities and reveal the details of his decades-long spying career. 

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This episode comes out for free on 04/30, and is available early and ad-free for Wondery+ subscribers.

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Eric O’Neill was a 27-year-old FBI surveillance operative when he first heard the name Robert Hanssen. It was the assignment of a lifetime: go undercover to bring down a mole that had been feeding secrets to the Russian government for more than two decades. O’Neill takes Lindsay behind the scenes of the operation that changed his life and led to the capture of one of the most notorious spies in American history. His book of the account is called Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America's First Cyber Spy.

Two decades before he was arrested in 2008 on corruption charges while still serving as Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich got his start in the dog-eat-dog world of Chicago politics under the tutelage of his mentor and father-in-law, Richard Mell. But after winning a seat in the Illinois house, Blagojevich chafes at his nickname, "Representative Son-in-Law." He's determined to prove he's his own man - and he'll stop at nothing as he seeks higher office.

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