RISING LEAKS: The number of leaks of classified federal government information reported to law enforcement as possible crimes is on the rise. The Federation of American Scientists’ “Secrecy News” summarized data released by the Justice Department last week which said that agencies referred to DOJ, 120 leaks in 2017 and 88 in 2018. The average number of referrals during the Obama administration was 39 a year. It is unclear whether the volume of leaks is increasing – or the willingness of Agencies to ask for criminal investigations has gone up.
LOWERING AIM: In last week’s Dead Drop, we told you about a story in the Washington Examiner which said that former CIA officer Valerie Plame was considering running for the U.S. Senate in the state of New Mexico. Well, this week Politico reports that Plame is eying an open U.S. congressional seat – which is being vacated by Representative Ben Ray Lujan who is stepping down in order to run for the Senate slot that the Washington Examiner said Plame was looking at. Which is it? We dunno. What we do know is that Plame is one of the handful of Democrats who is NOT planning on running for president in 2020. So far.
“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62
Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.
Subscriber+
