The gist I got was that the family suspected that the FBI asked him to go in the first place and then when he disappeared the FBI denied responsibility and tried to tell them their son had gone rogue to minimize their own responsibility.

The take away is that they more or less manipulated this young man into doing things he had no business getting involved in.

It is a sad story, but from reading it, I dont think they manipulated him into going overseas. If you just look factually at the statements of the FBI, not the implications, it sounds like they asked him not to go, but he went anyway. Seems like the responsibility is not the FBI's, he's 28, old enough to take responsibility for his own decisions.

There's even some implication that they intervened and shut down his other trip (to meet a woman he wanted to marry in ISIS territory! Bad Idea!). So FBI knew about the Russia trip but didn't shut it down maybe because he wasn't an employee they control? It's a free country, you dont need an exit visa. And asking him for contact info doesn't necessarily imply that they asked him to go. The article danced around that question, implying that FBI asked him to go (because they knew he went), but it's hard to imagine the FBI thinking the guy was a competent field agent (after shutting down the jihadi-bride trip). What would anyone have to gain from him bumbling around Donetsk/Russia? He was adept at penetrating jihadi chat groups, why would they risk that asset?

It seems that (from what little we have to go on) the agent handling him was far more concentrated on the middle east, but asked him to do a one-off on Donetsk, and he got interested in that region on his own.

Also it says that FSB invited him over. That was the big red flag for me: "Hey Mom! guess what?! FSB invited me to Russia!! w00t!" What happened to that paper? What did it say exactly?? Why would you tell your mom that FSB invited you to Russia?

Something's not quite right in this narrative, so many holes.

WSJ is doing FBI FUD pieces now?

I was with you until the last sentence. Whatever happened, this is pretty clearly a story.

A hit piece is a story. Presented in a biased way.

The title says clearly that the FBI is responsible for losing him. But it sounds like he actually wandered off into the wilderness on his own.

-- edit --

Oops, I wrote 'hit piece' originally and changed it to FUD. But still, the implication is that the FBI is a menace and that they're lying about their involvement.

He was an FBI asset. They literally did lose him.

Surely the point of the article was not that the FBI has one less asset now.

The title and most of the narrative is based on his parent’s accounting since the FBI allegedly chose not to give much information.

I don’t think it’s fair to call it FUD or a hit piece. Obviously since the majority of the information is provided from the prospective of the parents it’s biased, but the story is not making any wild claims like that it was a coverup. At worst it seems they’re accused of not caring much and having poor management.

There are several paragraphs that only serve to imply the narrative that the FBI sent him there and are covering it up.

> The FBI’s Confidential Human Source Policy Guide said a handler must give “an emergency communication plan” to a source traveling abroad.

> As an FBI source, Billy was required to report foreign travel, even vacations. The bureau has the authority to dispatch sources on foreign missions. It is one of the U.S. agencies responsible for disrupting terror cells abroad.

Since we're going over the FBI's rules and powers, the article should ask, does the FBI have the authority to block a source's vacations? That would be relevant.

There is zero concrete evidence presented that the FBI sent him to Russia. If there is any, that would support the premise that the FBI shares some responsibility for the result. But none has been presented.

Also, it's not really the FBI's role to show that they "care". Probably the people involved do care, as individuals and humans. I feel bad for the guy too, he sounds like he was just a bit lost in life. However, in terms of their jobs, they paid an adult to gather information online, which it seems he was pretty good at. Then he got a bee in his bonnet to go to a war zone (at the invitation of the FSB?) How are they supposed to manage that? That's next level. It sounds like they're doing their best to stay professional, considering the circumstances, and not make any public statements about his (apparently very poor) judgement. The statement that the FBI did not direct him to travel abroad says pretty much everything.

From the point of view of the kid's parents I'm sure they would have preferred that their son deescalated his involvement. The opposite happened when the FBI shows up and turns what was maybe a passing fad like playing goth dress up or smoking weed and turns it into a thing that pays money during a time when there aren't a ton of jobs available.

If I were the parents that's what I would take issue with. Yes, he was 23, legally an adult. But, plenty of kids are still impressionable and make stupid decisions at that age.

It's surprising to me how many people seem to think that the FBI should be taking into consideration things that (I would think) belong to the realm of parenting. Maybe that viewpoint is a lot more normal than I personally think it should be.

I do not want the FBI wasting my tax dollars trying to parent sources (or anyone for that matter). They're a law enforcement agency, not DHHS.

The parents were paying his internet bill (and everything else), it seems safe to conclude they had considerably more influence over his life direction than the FBI.

Remember the parents gifted him a vacation to SE Asia to meet the jihadi bride. Yeah, you want your kid to have a girlfriend, but there can be limits.

The article also doesn't tell us how much he actually worked for the FBI, other than that they didn't pay him very much (implying not very much). There are a small number of anecdotes, but presumably the article's authors know more and could have told us more.. How many reports did he write? How many did he get paid for? How many times did they meet over the five years, from when he was 23 to when he was 28? Ten? Five hundred?

It does tell us that Agent Tim went to Villanova (amongst other irrelevant personal information), so I guess that means he's supposed to play a parenting role to the sources he manages.

The alternative isn't expecting Agent Tim to play parent it's leaving the kid alone in the first place.

The implication I got is the men Billy found himself among men who didn't respect him (saw him as a walking wallet) and murdered him after he was no longer useful to them (they plausibly considered him a liability in combat since he didn't fit the mold of a soldier.) However I don't know if there was combat reported in the vicinity of Dibrivka during that particular time period. It's possible he was killed in combat.

> "Billy was nearly the opposite—5-foot-7, 160 pounds, his features rounded by a diet of snacks and fast food. His scruffy brown beard offset a receding hairline; rectangular metal-frame glasses gave him a bookish look."

> "Mr. Polynkov sized up his new recruit as a traveler, not a fighter. In his experience, soldiers of fortune didn’t travel with wheeled oversize suitcases. He tried to dissuade Billy from going to Rostov [...]"

> "Men at the camp forced Billy to pay their liquor tabs. “He was naive,” Mr. Victorov said. Billy’s credit cards registered more than $2,700 in fraudulent purchases and cash advances in Russia before he disappeared."

I don't think he ever stood a chance with soldier of fortune types. The kind of guys who go to fight for Russia backed separatists probably eat guys like him for breakfast. From the description of his death it sounds like he might have been murdered by one of them. Maybe he ran out of money or he ticked off the wrong guy.

Judging from the picture, the guy looked like a bumbling American nerd, not some sort of freedom fighter or partisan. I'm sure they pegged him as a potential spy from the start. Got in over his head, lead to a tragic end.

Lesson here is don't play war. Would he still be alive had the FBI not recruited him? Maybe, maybe not, but we'll never know.

I didn't get that impression. I think the parents felt that the FBI should have done more for them and for Billy considering his use to the FBI over several years prior to his trip to Russia.

Plus the journalist from WSJ did more for them in helping them find Billy than the FBI did. And recovering the body was also a huge ordeal that the parents basically did on their own.

Yes, that sucks. But.

Assuming the FBI asked him not to go, why and how should they FBI put resources into finding out what he did and what happened to him? Whether the FBI sent him there or not, he decided on his own to stay beyond his plan, and then enter a war zone. Everyone who does some contracting for the FBI deserves world-wide babysitting service?