Dead Drop: May 17 - 23

THE FAMILY BUSINESS: The CIA director flew to Havana a free days ago to deliver a message from President Trump - and found the Castro dynasty still very much in the room. John Ratcliffe met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, a one-time presidential bodyguard, and former head of Cuba's equivalent of the Secret Service, along with Cuba's interior minister and the head of Cuban intelligence. Rodríguez Castro has never held a formal government post. Ratcliffe reportedly urged the Cubans to take the January operation that ousted Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela as a lesson. The Cuban side reportedly insisted the island poses no threat to U.S. security and really shouldn't still be on the state sponsors of terrorism list. The last time the CIA had serious designs on the island, the plan involved an amphibious landing. So it’s kind of notable that some sixty-five years after the Bay of Pigs, the CIA was back - this time with an appointment.

WITT’S END RUN: The FBI announced a $200,000 reward last Thursday for a former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran in 2013 — a case the bureau is suddenly eager to revisit, given that the United States has been at war with Iran since February. Monica Witt served in the Air Force from 1997 to 2008, was trained in Farsi, ran classified counterintelligence missions in the Middle East, and later worked as a Defense Department contractor. She defected after attending conferences in Tehran that the Justice Department described as promoting anti-Western propaganda. Before she left, the FBI warned her not to share sensitive information if she returned to Iran. She went anyway. A 2019 federal indictment charged her with transmitting national defense information to the Iranian government, including the true names of undercover U.S. intelligence personnel — information the bureau says benefited the IRGC. Witt remains at large, is believed to be in Iran, and has adopted at least one alias. The FBI's Washington Field Office framed the new reward with notable precision: "The FBI believes that during this critical moment in Iran's history, there is someone who knows something about her whereabouts." There is no extradition treaty between the United States and Iran (duh). There is also, at the moment, a war going on. So the $200,000 is presumably for a tip, not a delivery.