THE CIPHER BRIEF SPEAKEASY IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS (BRIEFLY): While all the buzz was about The Cipher Brief HONORS Dinner last weekend and the amazing honorees and presenters, (it really was like the Oscars of national security), one of the most popular parts of the evening happened after all of the awards had been presented at The Cipher Brief speakeasy. While The Cipher Brief certainly isn't Vanity Fair or anything, we have to say that they hosted a pretty cool after party. Spotted among those celebrating the evening: ABC News Anchor and Correspondent Martha Raddatz, former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Michael Vickers, former InQTel CEO & President Chris Darby, former Deputy Director of CIA for Digital Innovation Jennifer Ewbank, Ambassador Doug Lute and his arguably better half, former Deputy Secretary and COO of the Department of Homeland Security Jane Lute, former Director of Cybersecurity at the National Security Agency Rob Joyce, The Hon. Michele Flournoy, former CIA COO John Edwards, former Deputy Director of CIA's National Clandestine Service CIA Mark Kelton, former Director of Strategic Operational Planning at NCTC VADM Mike LeFever, former JIOC Commander at U.S. Cyber Command Col. Candice Frost (Ret.), Former Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command General Tony Thomas, former former Director of the NSA and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command General Paul Nakasone former senior CIA Officers Ralph Goff, Glenn Corn and about a million more.... we could literally go on all night...and we hear the speakeasy almost did.
A PR PLAN FOR SIGNAL-GATE 3.0: There have been two reported Signal-gate incidents so far but who’s counting? Seeing as The Dead Drop likes to look ahead, we thought we’d be so bold as to offer a better PR plan for the next one. Beyond the alleged mishandling of national security information – the two cases so far have proven to be textbook examples of how not to communicate during a crisis situation. Those textbooks must have been on the government’s new “banned book” list though because the government response was “But there was no ‘classified’ information here. That ain’t a ‘war plan’. Who is leaking this classified information about our non-classified discussions? And Hey, what a great operation, eh? And then all of that was followed by: “We are going to investigate and prosecute the deep staters who leaked this” (because they must be “deep state” if they call out anything wrong, right?) and “We’ve fired 3 or 4 people (we just brought in 90 days ago)” Also, Why is the entire Pentagon being so mean to us? Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s supporters seem to be blaming all the trouble on “anonymous sources” – which is also a bit odd seeing that just about everyone involved has issued statements on X, written OPEDs in Politico, appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, or engaged in finger pointing at a somewhat junior high school level. Our free PR advice: Imagine if the initial response had been: “Man, we screwed that up. So sorry. Fortunately, no harm was done but we have learned our lesson and it won’t happen again.” Sometimes the straight-forward path is the best one, eh?
CALL IT WHAT IT IS: Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Chair of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was on a YouTube show called “The Benny Show” recently. We admit, we’d never heard of the show – but apparently a lot of people have, since it has somewhere north of 3.2 million YouTube subscribers (not too shabby). “Benny” is Benny Johnson – as far as we know, not a relative of the Senator with the same last name. But the two Johnsons appear to be kindred spirits when talking about how the attacks of 9/11 may have been an inside job. Johnson (the Senator) complained that federal agencies had “cover(ed) their tracks and cover things up and destroy a lot of evidence.” The two speculated that they may be labelled as “conspiracy theorists” – for resurfacing all of these debunked conspiracies. If it walks like a duck…..
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RUSSIA LOVES THE U.S. - CHINA TRADE WAR: Remember the Russian shadow fleet? All those sketchy old oil tankers that were surreptitiously moving Russian oil to China, India and other energy-thirsty buyers? You’ll remember that in order to punish Moscow for it’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU barred Russia from selling its crude for more than the $60-a-barrel price cap, which meant that if Russian oil sellers wanted the world price, (which spiked to $114 a barrel just after Moscow attacked Kyiv) and stayed in the $70s and $80s for the next two years, they had to go waaayyy down market, because legit Western tankers, marine service companies and insurance companies couldn’t do business with them due to the sanctions. This month though, Bloomberg News reports that thanks to the U.S.-China trade war, the price of Russia’s Urals crude has dropped below $60. So Russian oil companies can avail themselves of Western ships and marine services again.
FLYING WHILE FEMALE: For a while, some Air Force officials decided that in order to comply with the new administration’s directives on eliminating any reference to “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) they needed to take down webpages that contained articles about women and one of those included an article about now-retired Colonel Nicole Malachowski who was the first woman to fly with the Air Force flight demonstration team, the Thunderbirds. Malachowski flew F-15E Strike Eagles in three operational fighter squadrons and commanded her own fighter squadron. After media stories starting showing up about the Air Force’s censoring of stories about her flying while female – cooler heads prevailed, and articles about her past exploits seem to have been restored – at least for now.
MAYBE WE WAIT THIS ONE OUT: Lots of young Americans dream of becoming Navy SEALs. This is the story of one not-so-young candidate who has now filed a lawsuit against the government saying they slow rolled her application. Amanda Reynolds is a practicing attorney who apparently grew tired of legal combat and wanted to pursue a more “in your face” version, so she applied to become a member of the elite SEAL teams. But she claims officials dragged their feet in response, waiting to get back to her until she was technically too old to apply.
CIA AND FBI – A DRAMA: About six weeks ago, The Dead Drop told you of rumors of a new entry in the CBS family of scripted dramas about the FBI – at the time unimaginatively called “FBI: CIA.” Well, now Deadline reports that the show has been ordered “straight to series” (meaning they don’t have to shoot a pilot – they just get to go straight into production.) The program will star Tom Ellis and is scheduled to hit the airwaves during the 2025-26 season. As of now – the series is being simply called “CIA” but will still feature two partners – one a “fast-talking, rule-breaking loose cannon CIA case officer (Ellis), and a by-the-book, seasoned and smart FBI agent who believes in the rule of law.” What could go wrong?
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POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
APPARENTLY YOU CAN MAKE THIS STUFF UP: On Wednesday, CBS News reported that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directed that a room adjacent to the Pentagon press briefing room be used as a make-up studio. The purpose allegedly was so that DOD officials could look their best while arguing that military personnel need to look more like warfighters and less like – well, their best. The fix up of the makeup room was estimated to cost several thousands of dollars which in Pentagon-speak is decimal dust. We hear though that the room was planned to be used for more than just applying concealer and face-freshening powder but that it could also serve as a green room for senior officials waiting to take the podium. However, late on Wednesday Hegseth denied the CBS report calling it a “Totally fake story” writing on X “No ‘orders’ and no ‘makeup’ – but whatever.” Demonstrating the restraint that he is known for, Hegseth went on to say, “We should have installed tampon machines in every men’s bathroom at DoD instead — the leftist “news” media would have loved that.” We’ve offered free PR advice in the past that the Secretary may want to consider less posting of Dead Drop material (even though it keeps us full of content) and maybe more on actual threats to U.S. national security. Maybe we’ll send him a copy of our free PR manual, on Signal of course.
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