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Dead Drop

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NOUN

  1. A location to secretly pass information without a face-to-face meeting.

Each week we hope to give our readers tidbits of gossip from the world of national security and intelligence. The Dead Drop is a source of fun or intriguing news you can’t get anywhere else.

Got a tip for us? Email us at  thedeaddrop@thecipherbrief.com  and share the scoop. We promise to protect our sources and methods.

Below is our recent intelligence collection:

Dead Drop: July 5 - 11

AIR FORCE 1(A): President Trump's brand-new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One apparently wasn't quite ready for prime time. According to ABC News, after the NATO summit, the President flew from Ankara on the older presidential aircraft after security officials reportedly advised that the newly retrofitted 747 had not yet been equipped with the full suite of defensive systems carried by the other (older) Air Force One. ABC also reported that passengers aboard the older aircraft were instructed to keep their window shades down and that its flight tracker remained dark until the plane was over the [...] Read More

Dead Drop: June 28 - July 4

PARDON ME? Word around Washington is that President Trump is thinking about whether he wants to issue 250 new presidential pardons to mark the [...] More

Dead Drop: June 21 - 27

SILENCING THE GENERALS: A bipartisan chorus in Congress is demanding to know why Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed out more than twenty [...] More

Dead Drop Archive

Dead Drop: June 14 - 20

A NEW REALITY SHOW AT ODNI? The leadership page of the ODNI website now officially reflects William J. Pulte as Acting Director. This, as CNN reports [...] More

Dead Drop: June 7 - 13

HOW INTELLIGENT WAS THAT? Just before President Trump yanked the Acting Director of National Intelligence gig from Mar-a-Lago member Bill Pulte this [...] More

Dead Drop: May 31 - June 6

A “SPECIAL (OPS)” OPENING PITCH — We have it on good authority that Saturday’s opening pitch at the Yankees vs. Red Sox game is being thrown by a [...] More

Dead Drop: May 24 - 30

GOLD RUSH: A man referred to as David Rush, a Senior Intelligence Service-level CIA officer with top secret/SCI clearance was arrested on May 19 [...] More

Dead Drop: May 17 - 23

THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS A REALLY AWKWARD CHOICE: The U.S. and Israel reportedly went into their war on Iran with a regime-change plan that could [...] More

Dead Drop: May 10 - 16

MANHOLE COVER STORY: A Russian cargo ship called the Ursa Major sank off the coast of Spain in December 2024 under circumstances that were, until [...] More

Dead Drop: May 3 - 9

WORLDWIDE SHADOW POLICE: Beijing's transnational harassment apparatus had a rough week in a variety of jurisdictions. A London jury convicted two men [...] More

Dead Drop: April 26 - May 2

SOFT PEDAL POWER: As President Trump gets ready to head to Beijing for a May 14-15 summit, the Wall Street Journal is recalling a warmer era. In [...] More

Dead Drop: April 19 - 25

WITCH WAY TO THE QUARTERDECK? Don’t you hate when things you say just keep coming back to haunt you? Well, the U.S. Navy has a new acting secretary, [...] More

Dead Drop: April 12 - 18

A NEW FOCUS FOR SEB? Sebastian Gorka is rumored to be making a quiet play for one of the most powerful counterterrorism jobs in Washington and it’s [...] More

Dead Drop: April 5 - 11

RUMOR HAS IT — According to an Axios report, President Trump was ready to fire Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard over her failure to [...] More

Dead Drop: March 29 - April 4

DIA - UNCONFIRMED – We’re hearing from the rumor mill that DIA Deputy Director Christine Bordine’s last day in that role was today (Wednesday) and [...] More