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Dead Drop: May 16

CHANGE IS IN THE AIR: On Tuesday, Fox News was the first to report that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard removed the top two officials from the National Intelligence Council. There was no official explanation, which of course creates lots of space for rumors.  One of those rumors was that the DNI believes the acting Chairman of the NIC, Mike Collins, and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof were working to undermine the Trump administration. While we’ve seen zero proof of that, some media organizations speculated that recent reports that the NIC had reaffirmed an intelligence community assessment that the Tren de Aragua criminal gang was not working at the direction of the Venezuelan government, got them in trouble because the administration insists otherwise. In addition to the leadership changes, the DNI also reportedly ordered that the NIC, (which is under her prevue), will be moved from CIA headquarters to ODNI headquarters at Liberty Crossing.  And the New York Times reports that the staff that puts together the President’s Daily Brief will also be moved from Langley to ODNI HQ. We’ve heard some rumors of impending personnel changes at CIA, too but officials there say they have nothing for us on that.  We may just have to keep an eye on Fox News.

OUR OWN DOGE CONTRIBUTION:  Current and former senior defense officials recently told Defense One that Navy Vice Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley may be in line to lead the U.S. Special Operations Command taking over from Army General Bryan Fenton who has had the gig since 2022. Bradley, a Navy SEAL, is currently head of Joint Special Operations Command. One thing standing in the way of his getting the SOCOM job though is that he is reportedly also a candidate to become Chief of Naval Operations, a job that was vacated when Admiral Lisa Franchetti was fired by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for – well, no official given. We were thinking that maybe since Marco Rubio is dual hatted as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, maybe Bradley can serve both roles.  Consider it our DOGE suggestion of the week.

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