Thanks - provocative links! The man has Ashcroft's eyes.. notice?
As to the speculations on motive, obviously we'll never learn an iota about actual details. Weiss characterized Hanssen as 'compartmentalized'; describes a bizarre sexual display, to impress a boyhood friend (!)
Briefly, H. setup a hidden spy-quality TV-cam in his bedroom, would invite his friend by for days at a time (working on a thesis, supposedly). Feed connected to large screen TV downstairs. Would put on a display with his (H's) wife almost nightly..
H. abruptly stopped sending info ~ '91 - then attempted to resume in 2000. Can't recall what spooked him. Anyone interested in this case, prolly should buy Weiss's book. It won't solve the motive, but pretty well limns the character.
I forget author's spy credentials, but he described H. as a "master at his craft": at no point did the USSR folk know who he was or even - where ~ he worked. He got their attention initially with free high-grade info; they acquiesced to his method of drops. On renewal efforts in '00, per a letter quoted - he considered them (KGB - at highest level) "his friends" and said he was lonely, isolated.. 'wanted to hear something - even if just, goodbye'.
{sigh} Who knows, given our recent experience - what similarities there are amongst the high-level theological True Believers - Taliban or US-grown? What's a 'country' when ya got God lettin you help with Her Master Plan\ufffd? Why.. such a one might want to be sure the mere 'country' got a Copacetic President (and especially: staff). Logical - if such a word applies to deep internal fantasy.
IMhO - Ashcroft may prove to be as large a liability as Hanssen.. depending on what occurs next. Only thing I know fershure: ain't gonna be no impeachments in Murica anytime soon - except about sex, maybe.
Like the insistent undercurrent about Pope John XXIII's untimely death (my kinda guy) - I expect our 20th century Borgias to escape as handily as did their predecessors. Not a chance that any conspiracy as existed on such a scale, could ever be 'proven'. (nor would Hanssen have been found, had he not become careless: left a finger print on a bag containing some stuff)
Expect no investigations. Even when a USSC Justice goes against his every previously stated er 'legal convictions', and fabricates a rationale which produces hoots among even the reactionary wing of legal scholars..
Ashton
It's all a play, nothing more or less. Also,
nobody expects... the Spanish Inquisition!