WARNING: The Dead Drop contains cynicism, witty writing and a snarkiness that is not acceptable for sensitive consumers. Proceed at your own risk.
HOPE HE KEPT HIS BUSINESS CARDS: Last week’s Dead Drop began with a discussion of President Biden’s nomination of Ambassador Bill Burns to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. So, it seems logical we start this Dead Drop by noting the appointment of David Cohen as Burns’ deputy. Cohen, as you may recall, already had that gig from 2015 to 2017. Since the Deputy CIA Director role does not require Senate confirmation, Cohen was eligible to show up at Langley, find his old office and start work right away. We understand Trump-era CIA Director Gina Haspel and Deputy Vaughn Bishop retired – making Cohen Acting CIA Director around 12:01PM on January 20th. Here’s some interesting intel for you: Cohen is famous for landing a role as an extra on the hit show, Game of Thrones as he explained to us in 2019, and of course, for being a former Cipher Brief expert.
AVRIL HAINES ON DECK: Just about seven hours after Joe Biden took the oath of office, Avril Haines became the first member of his cabinet to be confirmed. The Senate confirmed Haines’ nomination to be Director of National Intelligence by a vote of 84 to 10. That is a margin of victory that most cabinet officials would kill for…(well, not literally.) Some observers noted that almost all of the ten Senators who voted against Haines also voted for her predecessor, John Ratcliffe, whose resume was somewhat thinner.
OVERTHROW THWARTED: On January 16, AXIOS reported that Gina Haspel narrowly avoided a plot to replace her deputy (and perhaps herself) with political operative Kash Patel last December 11th. Patel is a former aide to Representative Devin Nunes (R-Medal of Freedom.) The plan was to axe then-CIA Deputy Director Vaughn Bishop and install Patel as deputy and perhaps then, oust Haspel. The paperwork was said to have been drawn up, but Vice President Mike Pence came to the CIA director’s defense. Haspel got wind of the plan and let it be known that she would resign rather than accept the Patel putsch. NBC News reported that at about that same time, the White House was considering firing FBI Director Chris Wray which also didn’t happen. NBC says Haspel was so uncertain about her longevity that she had begun cleaning out her Langley office – in November, long before the end of the administration. Apparently, there were some folks who wanted to oust Haspel right up to the bitter end. On Friday, January 15, photographers snapped images of the “My Pillow” guy, Mike Lindell, leaving the White House. They zoomed in on a document in his hands and could see the phrase: “Move Kash Patel to CIA Acting.” Not great OPSEC, for a pillow guy, huh? How shocking.
UNPARDONABLE: As the Trump administration was ending, some lawyers apparently remained hard at work to the very end – trying to profit from it. The New York Times reported on January 17th that: a “onetime top adviser to the Trump campaign was paid $50,000 to help seek a pardon for John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who was convicted of illegally disclosing classified information.” In addition, the Times said that, according to a written agreement (which they had seen,) Kiriakou had agreed to pay an additional $50,000 bonus if the president granted the pardon. But wait, there’s more. A friend of Kiriakou’s told the FBI that the ex-CIA officer told him that associates of Rudy Giuliani had also offered to land a pardon for $2 million. Giuliani denies that – but Kiriakou confirmed the report and told the Times he had rejected such an offer saying: “Even if I had two million bucks, I wouldn’t spend it to recover a $700,000 pension.” If Kiriakou coughed up the original fifty grand pardon payment, he did not get his money’s worth. He was not among the 74 people pardoned and 70 individuals whose sentences were commuted. Intelligence veterans we talked with were also relieved that Edward Snowden and Julian Assange were not among those pardoned on President Trump’s way out of town.
LAST MINUTE BURROWING IN: “Better late than never” appeared to be the thinking of the outgoing Trump administration when it ordered General Paul Nakasone on January 17th to install Michael Ellis as the National Security Agency’s General Counsel. Ellis had been an adviser to Representative Devin Nunes (R, Haven’t I Heard of Him Before?) and later a White House operative. The actual hiring authority for the job belongs to the DOD General Counsel and it appears that Ellis was jammed into a career civil servant position just hours before the end of the Trump administration. Civil Service rules may make it difficult for the new administration to dismiss Ellis – but they can assign him elsewhere. Wonder if there are any lawyer billets in Guam? In any case, General Nakasone reportedly placed Ellis on administrative leave on inauguration day, after about 24 hours on the job.
SPYCRAFT: Netflix has launched a new 8-episode series called “Spycraft” which features Bob Wallace, former chief of CIA’s Office of Technical Services (the Agency’s “Q”), and intelligence historian and artifact collector H. Keith Melton. The series was inspired by their 2008 book, Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda. We found a trailer for the series posted on YouTube. Interestingly, the captions appear to be in Russian.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
THE BAD NEWS IS: According to CNN, Riley June Williams, a 22-year-old woman, may be linked to the theft of Nancy Pelosi’s laptop during the Capitol insurrection and may have planned to sell it to the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR. If true, we suppose the good news out of that would be that a 22-year-old knows what the SVR is, so all may not be lost for our educational system. (Although morals and patriotism would still be in jeopardy.) Williams surrendered to authorities on January 18 and a lawyer representing her says the allegations against her client are false. The Department of Justice though, says Williams was ratted out by a “former romantic partner.” The lesson here might be: love means you never have to say you are a traitor.
SOME OF THE NEWS IS FIT TO PRINT: You may remember that a couple times in the past, The Dead Drop relayed concerns from intelligence insiders who said the CIA seemed to be censoring some of the news items contained in their daily “Media Highlights” (a compilation of news clippings widely circulated around the IC.) So, we reached out and asked some of our sources this week if some of the stories mentioned above made it into the news clips. The results were mixed. Apparently, the Media Highlights DID include news reports about the nomination of Bill Burns and the appointment of David Cohen. And the attempt to place political operative Mike Ellis in a career slot at NSA days before the change of administration made it, too. But stories about Haspel cleverly dodging the bullets fired by folks who were out for her head or stories about a possible pardon for ex-Agency employee Kiriakou were apparently deemed not newsworthy enough. We’re excited to see whether the change in administration also brings a change in editorial perspective.
SECRET SIGNAL: Did you pay attention to the video released by President Trump on January 13th in which he appeared to condemn political violence? Not as close as some people did, we bet. QAnon supporters examined the video in minute detail and told each other to ignore the words, but focus on Trump’s hands. According to The Sun, a pro-QAnon forum claimed that Trump’s hand movements were sending secret signals. Specifically, they say he was sending “dash-dash-dot-dash” which represents the letter “Q” in Morse code. If you would rather focus on his words – it is worth noting that at about the 2:55 mark of the video, Trump says: “But I cannot emphasize that there must be no violence, no lawbreaking and no vandalism of any kind.” Apparently, he skipped over a word on the teleprompter and meant to say: “But I cannot emphasize ENOUGH that…” Either that, or he was really sending a signal. Oddly, the White House never released a transcript of the remarks. We pulled the words quoted above from the closed captioning on the remarks that the White House posted on YouTube.
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SEND US A SIGNAL: Morse Code not necessary. Just send an email to us at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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