WARNING: The below contains snarky political humor and may not be appropriate for sensitive readers.
NUMBER 2, MAKE IT SO: President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Cipher Brief Expert David Cohen to be Deputy CIA Director. He will become Acting Director on Inauguration Day, as Ambassador Bill Burns, tapped to lead the Agency, awaits confirmation. While the retired career ambassador does not have direct intelligence community experience on his lengthy resume, Burns’ past service as U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation and Jordan, as well as his service as Deputy Secretary of State should serve him well. Just as important, is Burns’ management style, affability, and gravitas. He reportedly is fluent in Russian and Arabic which might come in handy as well. Just prior to the announcement of Burns’ selection – the transition team let it be known that the CIA director nominee would not be a member of Biden’s cabinet. (In the Trump administration, both the CIA director and the Director of National Intelligence had cabinet status.) Insiders we talked with were unconcerned. “The only thing that being in the cabinet gets you is the obligation to show up for the State of the Union speeches and the problem of trying to figure out when to stand up and when to applaud,” one former official told us. Another issue is that CIA directors are supposed to stay away from making policy recommendations – which is pretty much the whole purpose of a cabinet meeting – so we’re guessing that Burns (who will be considered a “National Security Council principal”) may welcome not having to attend cabinet meetings.
THAT’S ONE WAY TO SELL BOOKS: Ambassador Burns published a book titled, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal in 2019 which was very favorably reviewed in The Cipher Brief. So, when word of his nomination came out, we checked to see how it was doing on the Amazon.com sales rankings. Short answer: not too good before the announcement. Early Monday morning the hardcover edition of his book stood 550,000th on the Amazon best seller list. The e-book ranked around 172,000 and the paperback was 74,000. But about 24 hours later, The Back Channel had soared to a ranking of 7,000 in hardcover, 3,100 on Kindle and 1200 in paperback. We’re guessing book sales were trending in Langley.
YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT UFOS: Ambassador Burns’ new employer (once he’s confirmed) just turned over some 2,700 pages of documents its been keeping on UFOs in response to a freedom of information request. The docs can be perused on a website called the Black Vault, run by John Greenewald Jr. The files, however, apparently aren’t all that easy to read. Greenewald told Vice’s Motherboard that they were turned over in an “outdated” format. We figure that could mean one of two things, either they don’t want us to know what’s in them, or they themselves are working on outdated legacy computer systems that just aren’t up with the times. You may remember that Congress is interested in UFOs, too. They recently gave the Pentagon 6 months to turnover what it knows about unidentified flying objects. DOD already shared some of their secrets last year, releasing three videos that showed strange flying objects caught on video by military pilots.
UNIDENTIFIED LARGE-HORNED ANIMALS: Last week’s Dead Drop started with a brief discussion of the “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” events on Capitol Hill on January 6th. And we noted the absurdity of some of the demonstrators/insurrectionists (choose your preferred description) who were running around dressed as large-horned animals. This week, we learned that the shirtless man wearing a furry headdress and calling himself “QAnon Shaman” is actually a U.S. Navy veteran. Seems kind of appropriate since the Navy’s mascot is a goat, right? Jacob Chansley, who also goes by Jake Angeli, is facing charges for unlawful entry to the Capitol and other offenses. He is currently in custody and his Mom says he hasn’t eaten in days because he only eats organic food and apparently organic is not on the menu in the federal lockup. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in DC announced the charges against him, saying that Chansley was: “…identified as the man seen in media coverage who entered the Capitol building dressed in horns, a bearskin headdress, red, white and blue face paint, shirtless, and tan pants. This individual carried a spear, approximately 6 feet in length, with an American flag tied just below the blade.” Shortly after the riots, Angeli told NBC News that he didn’t think he did anything wrong. Chansley, 33, spent two years in the Navy from 2006 to 2007. Military.com says he left the service with the rank of supply clerk seaman apprentice (E-2.) Initially, we guessed that he might have gotten out of the Navy early because his ship did not offer organic food on the mess decks, but subsequent reporting said that he was discharged because he refused to take the anthrax vaccine. That seems like an on-brand move.
DEMEAN STREETS OF DC: Journalists working for Voice of America are quite accustomed to powerful world leaders dissing their work. But they may have been a bit taken aback this week when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a speech to VOA staff (and broadcast around the world on VOA in 40 languages) in which Pompeo accused VOA of “demeaning America.” Some VOA staff were required to attend the speech and were told it would be about “the importance of VOA and the challenges facing the United States in the world today” according to a letter from the Government Accountability Project. One of the attendees, the VOA journalist assigned to cover the White House, Patsy Widakuswara, tried to ask Pompeo a couple questions as he departed the event. “Mr. Secretary, what are you doing to repair the U.S. reputation around the world? Mr. Secretary, do you regret saying there will be a second Trump administration?” she asked. Pompeo ignored her question but Widakuswara quickly found out what would be done about the U.S. reputation – she was removed from her White House beat. Now that’s a pretty unAmerican move if you ask us.
I HAVE 18, DO I HEAR 19? The U.S. Intelligence Community reached for the stars last week and added the Space Force as the 18th member of the IC. The Chief of Space Operations, General John Raymond, announced that the intelligence element of his service will be called the “U.S. Space Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Enterprise.” That’s kind of a clunky title but at least he got “Enterprise” in there, right Captain Kirk? There is no reason to think the size of the IC will be frozen at 18. It grows from time to time. Which got us thinking. Does the National Guard Bureau have an intelligence branch? (Judging by recent events you might guess no.) All the other military elements are in the IC. And the Chief of the National Guard Bureau is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff so maybe they deserve a seat at the (increasingly crowded) IC table.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
USAF IN FOR A BAD PATCH: The Air Force has directed its commanders to review official and unofficial unit emblems, patches, mottos, nicknames, coins and other items. An Air Force press release said that: “Commanders, at the squadron level and above, will remove any visual representation, symbols or language derogatory to any race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age or disability status to ensure an inclusive and professional environment.” While the Air Force did not provide examples of items in bad taste – Task&Purpose mentioned an incident from September where airmen were spotted wearing patches “featuring an MQ-9 Reaper drone superimposed over a red silhouette of China during a simulated island assault exercise in California.” Somehow, we get the feeling there are patches out there that are considerably more offensive than that.
LOGO NO GO: We mentioned last week that the CIA’s new logo displayed on its redesigned website is getting mixed reviews. OK, we were overly kind. As mistakes go, it wasn’t a whopper, but the black and white symbol with weird wavy lines is generally getting trashed. Doing somewhat better, are the folks at Burger King who just revealed their first new logo in twenty years. Maybe the next time the Agency re-jiggers its look – it can come up with something that looks more appetizing.
WE HAVE DESIGNS ON GETTING OUR READERS THE LATEST INFO: But we need your help. If you spot stuff that needs to be shared, email us at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
