Dead Drop: November 2

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Joshua Schulte is a former CIA employee now residing in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan.  Schulte is facing charges in connection with one of the most serious leaks of technical information in the Agency’s history, accused of handing Wikileaks sensitive technical tools CIA used to monitor bad guys. Schulte says he’s not guilty and according to the New York Post, he wrote to a judge complaining about the living conditions in the federal lockup, while he’s awaiting trial.  Schulte compared his situation with that of the U.S. college student who died following mistreatment at the hands of the North Koreans. “Otto Warmbier received better treatment and more justice in North Korea that I have received in America,” Schulte penned.  That being the case, we were going to suggest that President Trump outsource the case and ship Schulte to Pyongyang. But on Wednesday, Federal prosecutors said they planned to beef up charges against Schulte, saying that he has leaked classified national defense materials while incarcerated. Prosecutors told the court that earlier this month, they learned that Schulte had been using one or more smuggled cellphones to communicate clandestinely with individuals outside the slammer. Meanwhile, it looks like the guy accused of leaking CIA documents dubbed “Vault Seven” is staying in one Metropolitan Correctional Center – like it or not.

GOOD RECRUIT:  Diosdado Cabello, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, has accused Angelina Jolie of being a “CIA agent.” The charge was made shortly after Jolie made a visit to Peru as a special envoy for the United Nations refugee agency and met with some of the 400,000 people who have fled Venezuela seeking shelter in Peru over the past three years. Exactly why he thinks she is a clandestine operative was unclear.  If criticizing Venezuela’s treatment of their own citizens is all that is needed to earn Agency credentials – Langley is going to have to build a bigger headquarters.

“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

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