In the synergy between the U.S. intelligence apparatus and their media agents, the CIA, DOJ and State Department have specific outlets assigned to public relations.
A long tracked history and pattern reflects the DOJ and FBI leak their needs to the New York Times. The preferred outlet for the U.S. State Department is CNN; and the Washington Post generally comes out first in defense of the CIA agenda. This pattern has been remarkably consistent for years.

So against a backdrop of looming revelations about the intelligence community and their activity in the 2016 election; and suddenly The Washington Post, seemingly out of nowhere, pushes an article intended to diffuse the issues around western intelligence asset Joseph Mifsud; we can reasonably assume something is happening in the background that has officials in the CIA worried about exposure and their image.
From the WaPo introduction we can see what part of “spygate” the CIA is concerned about:
(Wa Po) […] The Maltese-born academichas not surfacedpublicly since that October 2017 interview, days after Trump campaign aide GeorgePapadopoulos pleaded guilty tolying to the FBI about details of theirinteractions. Among them, Papadopoulos told investigators, was an April 2016 meeting in which Mifsud alerted him that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.”




