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Dead Drop: March 2

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REDACT-ULOUS: Last Saturday afternoon, the Trump administration authorized House Democrats to release their rebuttal memo to the House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., “DOJ is being mean to Carter Page!” memo. By now, just about everyone has weighed in on which party’s memo proved everything you thought all along. Verdicts ranged from President Donald Trump’s “a nothing” to “devastating,” according to Vox. Here at The Dead Drop, we won’t rehash the pros and cons – but what caught our eye was a discussion of the apparently sloppy redactions to the Dem memo. There are whole threads of conversations in the Twittersphere with people noting that, because the document was created with a non-fixed-width font, it is possible to figure out which words were likely present in some of the blacked-out spaces. For example, the document says: “The FBI had already opened sub-inquiries into (blacked out) individuals linked to the Trump campaign: (long blacked-out section) and former campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page.” The number of sub-inquiries (based on spacing and the hint of an “r” at the end of the redaction) appear to be “four.” It is harder to come up with the names blacked out – but the long expanse for three names could be caused by the inclusion of something like: “George Papadopoulos.”

PRESIDENTIAL PERSONNEL: Axios broke the news over the weekend that Trump is pushing for John Dunkin, the pilot of Trump’s personal airplane, to be made head of the FAA. That got us thinking. The president has told us that he hires “the best people.” So, who else might be hanging around from his past life who might be pressed into government service? It is not hard to make your mind wander – after all, an administration that (at least for a while) made a 29-year-old former fashion publicist the White House Communications Director and that made Omarosa Manigault an assistant to the president, might do anything. We asked around for suggestions. One government veteran suggested that the president’s barber be made Director of the Office of Management and Budget – since he or she is skilled at covering up big deficits. The chief engineer at Trump Tower might be in line for NASA administrator. After all, we know the elevators there work well, and the escalators always bring important passengers down safely. Who is your unlikely nominee for high office? Send suggestions to TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com or TheCipherBrief@protonmail.com.

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