THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN: Here at The Dead Drop we are old enough to remember when Republicans were the most outspoken supporters of the Intelligence Community and the Democrats – not so much. Now the roles are very much reversed. For example, Senator Ron Johnson (R, WI) was on Meet the Press recently. When asked by moderator Chuck Todd “So, do you not trust the FBI? Do you not trust the CIA?” Johnson shouted: “No, no, I don’t. Absolutely not. After Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, after James Comey?!” Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become a big champion of the IC. (At least the whistleblowing parts of it.) But, back in 2009 she got into a big dust up with the CIA claiming the Agency had never told her about waterboarding while the CIA insisted that she had been fully briefed. Speaking of the CIA then she said: “They mislead us all the time.”
STATE OF DISARRAY: It is not just the intelligence community that is under fire from some sectors of the chattering and governing classes. The State Department has been taking a lot of heat. The Washington Post describes Foggy Bottom as “deeply shaken” by the current state of affairs with morale plummeting. The recalling of career ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, from her post in Ukraine (reportedly at the direction of President Trump) was one blow. And as many as 130 department officials were recently told they are under scrutiny for their handling of emails sent to Hillary Clinton years ago - another morale buster. Inevitably, the leadership and management style of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is getting some attention. Last week, NBC News correspondent Richard Engel launched a couple tweets saying former intelligence officials told him when Pompeo was CIA Director he was “a bully to subordinates, driving some to quit or seek new assignments.” Engel quotes one anonymous Agency veteran as saying: “throwing binders was a popular sport.” In another tweet Engel said ex-officials told him Pompeo had fits of anger while at CIA, often when “analysis didn’t match the political theme of the day.” As a result, there were “Lots of slammed phones + demands for polygraphs.” (Remember that polygraph threat – it will come up again in this edition of The Dead Drop.)
LEAKERS ARE WORSE THAN SPIES: Sez who? No. Not Donald Trump. Well, not only Donald Trump. That was also the position of U.S. government attorneys filing a motion in Federal Court last week in a case involving Daniel Everett Hale, a former Air Force and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency analyst charged in May of passing top secret documents to a reporter. Hale’s attorneys threw a hail Mary asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to dismiss the indictment saying Hale was just exercising his First Amendments rights. Federal prosecutors said “Hale, no.” The damage in these cases could be really bad, they said (as quoted in the Federation of American Scientists’ Secrecy News. "While spies typically pass classified national defense information to a specific foreign government, leakers, through the internet, distribute such information without authorization to the entire world,” they argued. Driving home the point – on Wednesday, Henry Frese, a 30-year-old DIA analyst, was arrested and charged with passing highly classified information to two journalists – one of whom he had a relationship with. No word as to how Frese has answered the charges or whether he has hired a lawyer.
LEAKERS ARE SPIES: President Trump made his displeasure about leaks clear during recent remarks at a private event – remarks that leaked. In that case – he was talking about whomever talked to the so-called whistleblower. "I want to know who's the person, who's the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy," Trump said.
ON THE BOX THINKING: So, what does the president want to do about it? According to POLITICO, four former White House officials say the president is so obsessed about leaks that he frequently brings up the possibility of ordering polygraphs for White House staffers following major leaks. Politico reminds us of a 400-page report issued in 2003 by the National Academy of Science, which found polygraphs to be “intrinsically susceptible to producing erroneous results.” Trump is far from the first president to be spun up by leaks. In 1983 President Reagan said “I’ve had it up to my keister with these leaks.” Two years later, Reagan (urged on by then-CIA Director Bill Casey) was considering ordering polygraphs for cabinet members. Secretary of State George Schultz and then-White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker, III, reportedly threatened to resign if ordered to go on the “box” as the polygraph is sometimes called.
OF COURSE, THEIR LEAKERS AND SPIES ARE GOOD: CNN reported last week that the FBI is now running advertisements on Facebook in the Washington, DC area seemingly targeted at Russians trying to get them to drop by the FBI field office for a chat.
BUT THE RUSSIANS SAY OUR INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS ARE BAD PEOPLE: Shocker, we know. Sputnik News reports Dr. Ron Paul (who they describe as “author, physician, and United States presidential candidate in 1988, 2008, and 2012”) says the recently announced impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives is nothing short of a “CIA coup.”
TIMING IS EVERYTHING, JUST ASK THE KURDS: Late last Sunday President Trump shocked a lot of folks about tweeting out word that U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the Turkish-Syrian border. It had all the earmarks of a rash decision made after a phone call between Trump and Turkish President Erdoğan. When asked on Monday whether he had sought advice from the Joint Chief’s on the move, the president said “I consulted with everybody. I always consult with everybody.” Well, that sounds pretty definitive. Then on Tuesday the Pentagon’s spokesman issued a carefully worded statement saying “Despite continued misreporting to the contrary, (Defense Secretary Mark Esper) and (Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley) were consulted over the last several days regarding the situation and efforts to protect U.S. forces in northern Syria in the face of military action by Turkey.” Hmmm. “Over the past several days” – unclear whether that includes the period BEFORE the president announced his decision – or only after it.
SPEAKING OF RUSSIANS AND LEAKERS AND LIARS: Former CIA officer John Kiriakou (who claims to be a whistleblower but went to jail for leaking the identity of a fellow Agency officer) was on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Wednesday casting doubt on whether the person who reached out to the ICIG about the President’s Ukraine call is a legitimate whistleblower. Kiriakou said he thinks the person is just an anonymous source for the Democratic staff in the House of Representatives. President Trump tweeted out his appreciation for the comments and Kiriakou responded with the request “Please pardon me!” If Fox mentioned that Kiriakou now works for Russian television – we missed it.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
CIA PHASING OUT LAST CENTURY’S TECHNOLOGY: CIA Chief Information Officer Juliane Gallina was making a speech last week when she revealed that the Agency is on the brink of replacing fax machines with an email program called “Gray Magic.” CIA is also reaching out to improve its communications with industry. Replacing fax machines with email is one step CIA is making to “lubricate” conversation with industry, she said. We think that's a slick idea...
ANOTHER FORM OF GOVERNMENT OUTREACH: Federal officials say that a former professor at Drexel University received research grant money from the Navy, Department of Energy and National Science Foundation. The prof allegedly spent most of the money at strip clubs and sports bars in the Philadelphia area. According to Navy Times, Drexel has agreed to repay to the government $189,000. The professor repaid more than $53,000, resigned from Drexel and was barred from federal contracting “for six months.” Just six months? And oddly, he has not been charged with a crime.
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