Dead Drop: March 31
HI NUNES! A big guessing game in some circles around Washington this week involves speculation about who the heck cleared House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes onto the White House grounds last week. In case you have been on Mars – last week, after some secret source allegedly showed him some disturbing documents, Nunes held a solo press conference, rushed to see President Trump (who declared himself somewhat vindicated re wiretapping), and then the Chairman cancelled a bunch of scheduled hearings to the dismay of Democrats on his panel. Nunes’ staff revealed that he was on the White House compound (but not in the executive mansion) when he was treated to some information (which he says had nothing to do with Russia) but makes him think the privacy of Trump transition team members may have been violated. By the middle of this week, Nunes declared that he would “never” reveal his sources and methods. So – why couldn’t his source have provided the info in Nunes’ Capitol Hill office, and why did he or she opt to brief the chairman on the White House property, thereby implicating the Administration? Here is our guess – Congressional oversight committees get access to tons of “finished intelligence,” but they don’t usually see “raw intelligence.” Some of the Intelligence Community’s most sensitive secrets are kept on computer systems that make it impossible for someone to print what is on the screen. None of those terminals are on the Hill – but there are a couple in the White House – for example in the EEOB offices of the DNI and CIA Director – and in the office of the NSC’s Senior Director for Intelligence Programs. Nunes has said that his “source” was an “intelligence official” – but he might be stretching the definition to include the NSC intel point of contact – who is on detail to the White House from the DIA. In any case, ALL these people work for the President, and it makes little sense that the Commander in Chief would not authorize his subordinates to get the exculpatory information to all the members of the oversight committees. Unless, of course, the material is just a distraction and doesn’t really address Trump’s claims of his predecessor “wiretapping” Trump Tower. In any case – the information, whatever it is, does nothing to address the issue of alleged Russian tinkering with the U.S. election. Our guess is that Nunes’ actions are the Congressional equivalent of, “Look, a squirrel.” (Note: Shortly after The Dead Drop submitted this item – the New York Times reported that Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the NSC’s senior director for intelligence and Michael Ellis, a White House lawyer who used to work for Nunes were the folks who invited the Chairman to the White House to eyeball the intelligence.)
ENHANCED VETTING: When the Trump Administration first issued its travel ban executive order on January 27th, it said this was just a temporary action until it could review, and if necessary, enhance the vetting procedures for people attempting to enter the U.S. from seven (now six) countries. At the time, they said the review would take 90 days. Sure, Team Trump has run into some legal challenges in implementing the ban – but the review of vetting protocols should not have been contingent on court action. So our calculation is that the Administration should be two-thirds through their review of how to strengthen entrance procedures. Anybody at the White House, DHS, or State Department care to tell us how that review is going? After all – if this is such an urgent issue – we trust you are well along in completing the process. Right?
TRUMP V. CIA: Salon.com carried an article over the weekend asking the conspiratorial question: Is Trump at war with the CIA? We are pretty sure the answer is, “no” – since he is too busy being at war with the Obama administration, the “failing” media, 2/3rds of the Republican party, and 3/3rds of the Democrats. But the article does raise an interesting, if unrelated, point. The JFK Records Collection Act of 1992 mandates that all federal records relating to the JFK assassination be disclosed in full by October 26, 2017. This includes thousands of CIA documents which have heretofore been withheld or heavily redacted. Apparently, the only way the documents can be kept hidden past October 26th is if the President certifies that releasing them would create “identifiable harm” that outweighs the public interest in disclosure. Will President Trump dump out stuff the CIA has wanted shielded for the past half century? Stay tuned.
TERRORIST SANCTIONS: No doubt most of us are supportive of sanctions against corporations and government entities that provide support for terrorists. Well, usually. But AFP reported recently that the government of Iran announced it will impose sanctions on “15 U.S. companies for supporting Israel’s terrorist actions.” The step is reportedly retaliation for pressure from the U.S. Congress against Iranian support for terrorism. So who is on Tehran’s bad boy list? The CIA, the U.S. Army – and evil doers such as Re/Max Real Estate. Re/Max? Apparently, they earned the enmity of Tehran for “buying and selling homes in settlements located in the occupied territories.”
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
- Denial Trend. Two weeks ago we told you about Amazon’s Echo cyber personal assistant, Alexa, which, when asked, denied she worked for the CIA. Now, CNET tells us that Google’s version, “OK, Google,” mysteriously answers the question: “Do you know what the CIA is?” with an unsolicited self-defense: “No government entity, US or otherwise, has direct access to our user’s information. Respect for the privacy and security of data you store with Google underpins our approach to producing data in response to legal requests. You can learn more in Google’s transparency report.” We think they doth protest a bit too much.
- Russian Trolls: A Russian executive is suing Buzzfeed for stuff contained in the controversial “dossier” they published about Donald Trump. We have no idea of the accuracy of the court filing – but, according to Lawnewz, the Russian (or his lawyers) clearly have a sense of humor, since they titled it in the style of the Buzzfeed website: “SIX WAYS BUZZFEED HAS MISLED THE COURT (NUMBER TWO WILL AMAZE YOU)….AND A PICTURE OF A KITTEN.”
NETWORK NEWS: Not a day goes by when members of The Cipher Brief Network aren’t making news. Here are just a few examples from this week:
- Former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin was on MSNBC’s Last Word – With Lawrence O’Donnell Tuesday saying the HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes actions feels “like a cover-up.”
- Former CIA and NSA Director General Mike Hayden told Foreign Policy that President Trump is engaged in an unprecedented campaign to “delegitimize facts.”
- In a wide-ranging interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune about his forthcoming book, “Seapower: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans,” Admiral James Stavridis says “so much of our lives are accidents of time and fortune.”
EXECS ON THE MOVE: Robert Griffin is making the move from General Manager of IBM’s Safer Planet and Smarter Cities Division, to the CEO role at Ayasdi. The Menlo Park-based, VC-backed company is putting some muscle behind math when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. The company says it was founded by a group of Stanford computational mathematicians who combined machine learning, abundant computing, and user-centric design to create ‘intelligent’ applications that help extract data. That sounds cool. Even more cool if that data is then understandable to all of us who lack the PhD but understand the need for actionable intelligence. Congrats, Bob.
WHAT’S ON THEIR NIGHTSTAND? (Our contributors tell us about what they’re currently reading)
Kevin Hulbert, former CIA Chief of Station:
“I am reading an interesting book right now called Dancing Naked in the Mind Field by Kary Mullins, who is a really clever guy who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry. It’s an interesting yarn where he talks about everything from winning the Nobel Prize, to seeing UFOs, dropping acid, meeting aliens, surfing in California, and other myriad things. Frankly, he seems sort of mad, but hey, he did win the Nobel Prize!”
SECURITY QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“We need to change the fundamental objective of our policy, because North Korea will never willingly give up its program. Washington’s belief that this was possible was a key mistake in our initial policy thinking. The U.S. objective needs to shift from denuclearization to deterring the North from ever using or proliferating its nuclear weapons.”
-Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ret. Adm. James “Sandy” Winnefeld and former Acting and Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell
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