DNI SWEEPSTAKES: If everything goes as planned (which it almost never does these days) as you read this, the nation will have a new acting Director of National Intelligence, retired Vice Admiral Joseph Maguire, after President Trump showed DNI Dan Coats and his Principal Deputy, Sue Gordon the door. Late last week, the president told reporters that he was in no hurry to nominate a permanent DNI, which would require Senate confirmation. But that hasn’t stopped people from speculating.
THE CANDIDATES: THE HUMAN SIEVE: Among the names frequently mentioned as a candidate for DNI is Peter Hoekstra, currently the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands and former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI.) Hoekstra had a rough introduction to Amsterdam. Dutch media asked him about reports that he said there was “chaos in the Netherlands. There are cars being burned. There are politicians being burned.” The Ambassador denied having said such a thing and called the allegation “fake news.” Then they played him the tape. He subsequently apologized and said he meant to say “France,” rather than the Netherlands had been serving its politicians en flambé. Hoekstra’s tenure on the HPSCI was also not without controversy. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (definitely not a fan of this administration) told her viewers last week that Hoekstra was a “human sieve” who leaked a lot when in Congress. In 2009, Hoekstra was among members of Congress traveling to Iraq on what was supposed to be a secret trip due to safety concerns. But Hoekstra live tweeted the trip. Two years before that, he wrote an essay in the New York Post complaining about leaks. But within his anti-leak OPED, he reportedly inadvertently included classified information about the intelligence budget. And then in 2006, he is said to have convinced the Bush administration to post on the internet a cache of documents seized in Iraq. Among them, unfortunately, was a document which included instructions, in Arabic, for making an atomic bomb.
THE CANDIDATES: THE SWAMP DRAINER: Hoekstra is by no means the lone candidate for the DNI post. The conservative site Newsmax.com seems to be campaigning on behalf of former CIA analyst and John Bolton aide, Fred Fleitz. On February 8th Newsmax ran an opinion piece by Peter Pry titled: “Fred Fleitz Will Drain Intelligence Community Swamp.” Comparing Fleitz to Nathan Hale, the column went to some lengths flogging Fleitz’s credentials. The same day, Newsmax reported it has learned that “over 170 top-level intelligence community leaders” had written to President Trump urging him to nominate Fleitz. The letter writing campaign was said to be organized by an outfit we never heard of before called “ReportForThePresident.org.” Interestingly, the article did not include a copy of the letter and listed only two people supporting the effort: Robert Caron (someone also involved with an outfit called “Joint Task Force Make America Great Again”) and William Binney, a former NSA official and whistleblower who has declared that the hack of DNC emails in the 2016 presidential campaign was an inside job and that Russia should not be blamed.
THE CANDIDATES: MIKE (NOT THAT MIKE) ROGERS: Yet another name bandied about by the chattering class is that of Mike Rogers. Generally, when you hear folks bring it up, they are speaking of the retired admiral and director of the National Security Agency, Michael S. Rogers. Sometimes people get confused and are talking about former FBI agent and chairman of the HPSCI Michael J. Rogers. Ex-congressman Rogers seems to be well-qualified, but he has been slightly critical of the president in some of his TV talking head outings – which probably means that Mr. Rogers won’t be welcomed in the DNI neighborhood any time soon.
MAINTAINING A FOOTPRINT WITH NO BOOTS ON THE GROUND: Lots of folks are opining about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of administration plans to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. Former CIA Director, General David Petraeus took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal recently to argue that the U.S. had abandoned Iraq and shouldn’t do the same in Afghanistan. Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell was a guest on the Brian Kilmeade show on Fox News Radio and said that if we leave Afghanistan, the Taliban will take over and Al Qaeda will reemerge. Foreign Policy carried a report about the Khost Protection Force (KPF), which it says is a unit of Afghan soldiers trained, equipped and funded by the CIA. FP says the “CIA is making plans to leave behind proxy forces (like the KPF) that will remain long after any formal U.S. pullout.”
TROLL CALLS: In 2017, Dutch fighter pilots engaging in training exercises in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and were met with some very unusual Russian opposition. Not in the air – but on the telephone. According to Netherland Times, the wives and girlfriends of the deployed pilots suddenly started received threatening calls on their personal phones. The callers reportedly had Russian accents – and asked the women what their significant others were doing in the former Soviet states and whether they would be better off elsewhere. The Dutch forces had been sent to the region as a warning to Russia that NATO would not accept an attack on the Baltics similar to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Apparently, the Russian government trolls took exception to the message.
WANT TO GET REALLY LIT? Fun-loving Russians have come up with vodka made of ingredients which originated from the Chernobyl exclusion zone. In a bit of rye humor, the distillers have named it “Atomik.” The product is an experiment to find out how much radioactivity might come from crops raised in the zone. A British scientist told the BBC that the new product is “no more radioactive than any other vodka.” Which raises the question: how much radiation is there in standard vodka? Don’t look for it just yet in your local liquor store, however. Only one bottle of Atomik has been made so far but the Chernobyl Spirit Company reportedly hopes to distill more with a gimlet eye toward helping local communities that surround the no-go zone.
RUSKIE ROCKETS RED GLARE: Speaking of the Russian proclivity to set off radiation detectors, there is the story of a recent rocket accident at a rocket testing facility in the country’s far north. The New York Times says that seven Russians were killed in an explosion of what might have been a new nuclear-propelled cruise missile. NATO calls it the SSC-X-9 “Skyfall” (a name apparently lifted from a James Bond movie.) The Russians call it the “Burevestnik” (which shows they are as bad at branding as they are at covering up missile mishaps.) Moscow has said very little about the accident. Radiation levels in a city thirty miles from the blast reportedly were higher than usual for about forty minutes before returning to normal. The BBC says there has been a run on iodine tablets at local pharmacies in nearby Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk. Iodine can block the thyroid glands absorption of radioactivity. Can Arctic-Atomik vodka be far behind?
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
SEEKING SPIES: A senior Australian counterintelligence official told Australia’s parliament Wednesday, reporters should not be exempted from national security investigations, because foreign spies often pose as journalists. Australian Security Intelligence Organisation deputy director-general Heather Cook said, "These foreign intelligence actors seek to exploit vulnerabilities in our legal system in order to harm Australia's security and to recruit individuals who can assist them in their goals." Australian Federal Police are considering charges against News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst over the leak of secret government documents.
We stole this little nugget word for word from National Security Correspondent JJ Green’s Inside the SCIF newsletter. It’s a good one to add to your weekly collection routine.
WE HAVE FOUND THE ENEMY: According to Russian-TV expert Julia Davis, Aleksey Zhuravlev, a member of Vladimir Putin’s ruling party, appeared on state TV recently and blamed the United States for recent Siberian wildfires, heavy rains and flooding in Moscow. Aleksey says the U.S. is “experimenting with climate weapons” because “Russia surpassed their military might.” We wouldn’t go that far, but clearly the Russians have surpassed us in making vodka from contaminated areas – so they have that going for them.
DON’T TREADSTONE ON ME: The USA network has released the first trailer for its new series “Treadstone” which is set to debut in October. A spinoff of the Jason Bourne franchise, Treadstone reportedly centers around a group of “sleeper agents” who, according to The Verge, are “uncannily good at getting in and out of fights but are conditioned to not remember their training.” Sounds familiar, but we just can’t seem to place why…
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
