CIA DIRECTOR ANNOUNCES LEADERSHIP TEAM: CIA Director Gina Haspel is naming 32-year career officer Andrew "Andy" Makridis as the Agency's new COO, and 34-year career officer Sonya Holt as the new Diversity and Inclusion Officer. It's noteworthy that both are insiders, as is recently named DDCIA Vaughn Bishop. A source familiar with the decision tells the Dead Drop that the Director's background in operations has given her a keen understanding and appreciation for both experience within the Agency and more broadly, diverse life experiences and viewpoints, given that the intelligence mission spans the globe. We're told that senior leaders will begin a series of workforce engagements in the very near future.
CLEARANCE SALE: For former senior national security officials it appears that the price for keeping your security clearance is high. Want to keep those “tickets”? Just promise to say only nice things about the president (or at least nothing bad.) Most of the former officials we have talked with since Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the President had yanked former CIA Director John Brennan’s clearances said they saw the move as a heavy-handed attempt to punish free speech. To be clear, not all of them are on board with the hot rhetoric Brennan has used since leaving office, to describe his disdain for the president. Some think former officials, like current ones, should not be so vocal in public, but most objected to using clearances to tighten lips. One of the most interesting reactions to the news that Brennan's clearance was being revoked came from former CIA officer David Priess who tweeted” “To honor free political speech – whether I agree with what’s said or not – I’m donating in the name of @JohnBrennan to the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation, supporting children/spouses of CIA officers who lost their lives in service.
WHO COO? Back in March when then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo was nominated to be Secretary of State, the Dead Drop speculated that he might take his old pal, the Agency's Chief Operating Officer Brian Bulatao with him. Sure enough, about two months later the President nominated Bulatao to become Under Secretary of State for Management. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a confirmation hearing for Bulatao on July 18 and he is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate when it returns to work after Labor Day (unless nominees are held up by political shenanigans.) That leaves the question — who will replace Bulatao as the Agency's #3? We hear a well-respected career analyst is waiting in the wings and will be announced shortly. If true, that would mean the top three positions at CIA would be held by officials who spent their entire careers in intelligence — the first time that has occurred in memory.
FIRST PIAB, NOW IOB: The White House is officially appointing Stephen A. Feinberg as Chair of the Intelligence Oversight Board. The IOB is part of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, (PIAB) to which Feinberg was named chair back in May. The PIAB was created as an independent source to advise the President on the effectiveness of the Intelligence Community. Fineberg, a New York-based businessman and co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Cerberus Capitol Management, had been widely expected to take on the role. The Dead Drop is interested to see who else will be joining the PIAB-IOB, and whether one of the first orders of business will be getting a new acronym.
WITH ALLIES LIKE THE UNITED STATES… The fine folks in Montenegro might be wondering what they got themselves into when they joined NATO. First, Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson and President Trump questioned why any American would want their kids dying to protect Montenegro (despite Article 5 of the NATO charter) and now AP reports that the country has issued an international arrest warrant for Joseph Assad, a former CIA officer who officials accuse of being involved in a pro-Russia coup attempt in 2016 designed to prevent Montenegro from joining NATO.
WITH ALLIES LIKE THE TURKS…. Several of our NATO allies seem to be looking at the U.S. suspiciously. Late last week, President Trump announced new sanctions against our Turkish allies because of their continued detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson over allegations that he had been involved in yet another failed coup. Meanwhile, according to Christian Broadcasting News, Turkish President Recep Erdogan reportedly told media in his country that the CIA and Israel’s Mossad are planning a rescue mission to spring Brunson from his Turkish house arrest.
RESUME BUILDER: Here at The Dead Drop, we are old enough to remember hearing that when George H. W. Bush took the job of CIA Director, he was convinced that association with the Agency would be the death knell to any political aspirations he had going forward. Turns out he was wrong on that one and people now-a-days have a different view. The Wall Street Journal reported this week on a growing number of intelligence community veterans who are throwing their hats in the ring for elective office. It has become so common that in Texas, former military intelligence officer, Gina Ortiz Jones, is running against GOP Rep. Will Hurd, who is a former CIA operations officer.
GO-STRZOK-ME: Shortly after word leaked out on Monday that the FBI had fired Special Agent Peter Strzok for ill-advised text messages (sent via government devices) to his extra-marital girlfriend about Donald Trump – “Friends of Special Agent Peter Strzok” created a GoFundMe page “dedicated to covering Pete’s hefty – and growing – legal costs and his lost income.” Initially the page cited a goal of $150,000. Within two days organizers raised their sights to a goal of $500,000 and were close to achieving it. Which reminded us to check on the GoFundMe page set up for former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer Jim Wolfe who was arrested for lying to the FBI about close and continuing contact with some reporters. Wolfe started out with a goal of $500,000. We reported to you back in early July that he was just $492,000 short of reaching that amount. Eight weeks later and additional $300 or so has poured in.
SECRET CERAMICS: Associated Press reports that newly declassified CIA documents show that the Agency recently took delivery of specially made Polish-crafted plates, bowls and tableware with the CIA’s official seal. According to AP, Helena Smolenska, the head of the craft-maker cooperative in the town of Boleslawiec that produced the ceramic set, said workers met the order with "joy and disbelief" and saw it as a chance to do "something exceptional." No word on exactly WHY the CIA needed the bowls —- but we’re sure they are quite nice.
NO ESCAPE FROM CYBERSECURITY TRAINING: NextGov says that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has contracted with an outfit to provide some unique cybersecurity training. According to the report, co-workers would be locked in an office at an NGA facility with only their “wits, teamwork and knowledge of cyber hygiene to get everyone to safety.” The contractor has two basic scenarios: a black hat theme which illustrates how bad guys gain access when organizations and employees forget to reset default passwords or don’t use multifactor authentication; and a defensive scenario focusing on finding and fixing cyber hygiene violations. Players earn keys as they solve problems and answer questions, enabling them to advance through the game (and hopefully get out of the locked room.) The plan sounds a bit like when Chief of Staff John Kelly brought Omarosa into a locked White House Situation Room. Let’s hope the NGA training exercise turns out better.
SPEAKING OF TRAINING: When providing instruction to government employees, it is very important to have a clear message. We can think of no better example than a 1943 Navy training film, recently discovered by Slate, titled “Don’t Kill Your Friends.” The flick stars Huntz Hall who you may remember from the “Dead End Kids” and “Bowery Boys” series. Hall plays an accident-prone naval aviator by the name “Ensign Dilbert.” “Don’t Kill Your Friends” are words to live by.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
- Loss of Face: The PR firm Burson-Marsteller’s Washington office reportedly has landed a $25K a month gig representing “Hikvision,” a maker of video surveillance systems that is associated with the Chinese government. Hikvision is described as a leader in facial-recognition technology and their gear is in use at many U.S. airports, schools, prisons and homes. It has also been used at U.S. military bases and embassies – but the concern is that Hikvision units could be secretly sending footage to Beijing. We are not sure what Burson-Marsteller is doing for the $25 grand – but one valuable contribution might be to suggest the outfit come up with a better name than “Hikvision.”
- Q Clearance: You’ve probably heard a little about these “QAnon” adherents with wacky conspiracy theories who have been showing up at Trump rallies. They reportedly believe (and we are not making this up) that President Trump was convinced by the military to tear down a network of “deep state” pedophiles who have run America going back to the Kennedy administration. So, who or what is to blame for such lunacy? The website Common Dreams thinks it knows a starting place to point fingers. The CIA. Near as we can decipher it, the theory was that back in April of 1967, the Agency created an effort to paint critics of the Warren Commission as “conspiracy theorists” and stifling the skepticism then has somehow caused nutty ideas about pedophiles in pizza parlors today. Sounds like a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories to us. But maybe that is just what they want us to think.
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
