C. The Polygraph Administered by the FBI in October 2019

14. In Debbins's letter to the court dated February 2, 2021, he states that, in the period between 2014 and his arrest, he "[w]as paranoid of the GRU and loved ones." Debbins explains, "I thought my wife and daughter were working for the GRU, which may explain why I didn't pass the 2019 FBI polygraph. The FBI didn't believe me when I told them that I had no post-2010 contacts."

15. For the background of the Court, the FBI began investigating Debbins after he failed a polygraph as part of his security clearance reinvestigation in early July 2019. Between July 2019 and December 2019, the FBI interviewed Debbins on multiple occasions about his cooperation and contacts with Russian intelligence agents. During these interviews, Debbins claimed that he stopped cooperating with the Russian intelligence agents after 2010. At the FBI's request, Debbins agreed to take a polygraph examination regarding whether he had any communication with the GRU or any other branch of Russian intelligence after 2010.

16. The FBI administered the polygraph to Debbins on October 23, 2019. Before the polygraph, Debbins signed two forms—a "Consent to Interview with Polygraph" and an "Advice of Rights." During the examination, the polygrapher asked Debbins whether he had any contact with Russian intelligence or the GRU since 2011. Debbins failed the polygraph.

17. During the interview immediately following the failed polygraph, Debbins continued denying any contact with the GRU since 2011. He offered a number of explanations as to his inability to pass. However, Debbins did not mention any paranoia that his wife and daughter were working for the GRU as a possible explanation. In fact, Debbins explicitly told the FBI that his wife was not involved with the Russian intelligence service during a separate interview.

Does this statement by Debbins prove that his admissions during the polygraph are what led to him being caught?

I didn’t confront the mental pathologies that plagued me and my feelings against the Kremlin, and because of that, I made another great mistake in 2014. I embraced an occult belief system in which I believed I was my own God, and thought I could conform to my will. My recitations and visualization rituals did not transform reality but created delusions. I created an imaginary advisory council of current and historical figures to guide and assist me. Instead of changing Russia. I descended into insanity unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and from 2014 until my arrest, I experienced the following:

• Suffered from insomnia which gave me 3 hours of sleep a night
• Had bizarre dreams, night terrors, and hallucinations of meeting with the GRU. I even thought they were in my house and I removed the smoke detectors believing they were surveillance devices.
• Crossed moral boundaries
• Was always in a manic state of high energy
• My mind would race constantly
• Conducted trances to enter into the “subconscious universe”
• Believed I could communicate via telepathy and dreams
• Excessively used caffeine, alcohol, and sleeping medication
• Believed in signs and omens
• Was paranoid of the GRU and loved ones. I thought my wife and daughter were working for the GRU, which may explain why I didn’t pass the 2019 FBI polygraph. The FBI didn’t believe me when I told them that I had no post-2010 contacts
• Believed the souls of my aunts and uncles who perished from Stalin’s famines were living through me
• Created fantasies of past misdeeds needing atonement
• Had delusions of becoming a double agent
• As a CI professional, I was becoming that what I gazed upon and demonized myself as having affinity to Russia.

With all of this psychological and physiological torture, I simply wanted to unload these racing thoughts to pass my polygraph, without considering the legal ramifications. I made self-destructive and self-incriminating statements as a subconscious suicide attempt of a tormented soul, whose life was ruined by this de-humanizing Kremlin regime.

D. Procedural History

As of July 2019, Debbins was working for a DIA contractor overseas. See Tomlinson Decl. ¶ 7; Ex. A, ¶ 22. That month, as part of his security clearance reinvestigation, he returned to the United States to take a polygraph examination, which he failed.⁵ See Ex. A, ¶ 23. After Debbins failed the polygraph, he participated in a series of voluntary interviews with FBI agents from July 2019 to December 2019. See id. ¶ 24. During these interviews, Debbins detailed his cooperation with the Russian intelligence agents from 1996 until 2010. See id. Debbins has claimed that his conspiracy with the Russian intelligence agents did not continue past January 2011. See id. 25; SOF ¶ 1.

5. The government includes the information that Debbins failed his polygraph examination solely to provide the context leading to the FBI interviews—not as a factor to be considered in determining Debbins' sentence.

I did not ask for proof from the government.  I asked for proof from George, proof that Debbins took and passed a polygraph given by either INSCOM or DIA to substantiate his claim of "another catastrophic failure of polygraph screening".  He already admitted that he has nothing more than "strong circumstantial" evidence, which is not evidence, but speculation/conjecture.

troll_of_truth wrote on Apr 19^th, 2021 at 2:18am:


That's the very definition of speculation.  Thank you, you just proved my point.

We, the antipolygraph community, can make deductions from news articles, court documents, and other information we find online.  We can surmise that people have passed the polygraph while hiding criminal activity.

The fact is, Debbins is one of many polygraph-passing federal criminals. 

This kind of work typically requires polygraph screening.

Also, if Debbins took a polygraph for his job at anytime in the past 15 years, then he must have beaten the polygraph to keep his job and continue his espionage activities.

AntiPolygraph.org's previous reporting on the Debbins case, including evidence that he beat the polygraph to penetrate the U.S. Army's Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is available here:

troll_of_truth wrote on Nov 20^th, 2020 at 10:14am:


I expect most spies already know that confessing is a bad idea.

If a failed polygraph "test" were ever the trigger for an espionage investigation that culminated in a conviction, nothing would prevent the U.S. government from publicly stating so, and it would be under no obligation to answer questions from journalists about it that it did not want to answer.

However, the U.S. government will never publicly say this because then spies will learn to avoid confessing.

I see no policy consideration that would prevent the U.S. government from publicly stating that a spy had been caught by the polygraph if such a thing has ever happened. I don't understand on what basis you believe that discussing it would "open up the polygraph to exploitation."