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Dead Drop: August 5

Dead Drop: August 5

MORELL IS WITH HER: Last week The Dead Drop told you that Fran Townsend, the former Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, has been hired by CBS News to serve as their “senior national security analyst.” A number of our readers asked: “Hey wait a minute.  Isn’t that Michael Morell’s job?” This week we can tell you that Morell had asked to be relieved of his talking head duties so that he can publicly support a presidential candidate – and boy has he.  The former Acting and Deputy Director of the CIA has a smoking hot OPED in Friday morning’s New York Times in which he lauds Hillary Clinton’s ability to keep the country safe as president and lambasts Donald Trump who he says would be a “poor, even dangerous Commander in Chief.”  What’s more, Morell, who says he is neither a registered Democrat or Republican, says that Trump is already harming national security and is playing into Vladimir Putin’s hands and is “an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

NONE OF THE ABOVE: Other former senior intelligence officials come down differently. There is retired Lt Gen Mike Flynn, of course, the former DIA Director who spoke vigorously on Trump’s behalf at the Republican convention in Cleveland telling the crowd: “Wake up, America! There is no substitute for American leadership and exceptionalism."  On the other hand, former CIA and NSA Director General Mike Hayden told MSNBC on Tuesday that is it possible he may not vote for President in 2016 given the choices. Former top CIA lawyer John Rizzo told The Daily Caller that he was “not prepared to vote for either candidate” citing Trump’s erratic foreign policy statements and Clinton’s handling of classified information as reasons.

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