Most excellent taste, fren.
Yes. Started around the time that FBI had to play a faux distance-yourself game with Steele. Nellie was the 1st leg of the cutout ratline back to the FBI, hubby Bruce was the 2nd cutout.
Nellie mostly comm'd with Steele via email but kept moar sensitive comms for HAM, in Russian, and coded.
Yes. To boil it down from complex radio technical discussion to a simple statement, the real issue isn't the power of the transmitter, but the sensitivity of the receiver.
Atmospherics helps, of course.
But - yes.