IF THE SECDEF CALLS, GET HIS NAME: NBC News reported on Labor Day that President Trump might be ready to make a change at the top of the Defense Department (again.) Normally, less than 60 days before an election would be an odd time to fire a cabinet member, but NBC says Trump hasn’t ruled out axing Mark Esper and installing Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie in his place. Esper has been on thin ice since he seemed to take a different stance than the president on military installations named for Confederate leaders. Keeping those names may be one way for the president to demonstrate that he has nothing against “losers.” If there was any doubt that the president holds some senior Pentagon leaders in low regard – look no further than his press conference on Monday when he said "I'm not saying the military’s in love with me, the soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t, because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”
FAMILY FEUD: Nieces are hard to predict. President Trump’s niece Mary recently wrote a book that was not too complimentary of him. But you know whose niece is a Trump fan? Osama bin Laden’s. Well, at least that is what the New York Post says. According to the tabloid, Noor bin Ladin says that only Trump can prevent another 9/11. The paper carries a picture of Noor sporting a “Make America Great Again” hat – noting that she lives in Switzerland. “I have been a supporter of President Trump since he announced he was running in the early days in 2015. I have watched from afar and I admire this man’s resolve,” she said. “He must be re-elected … It’s vital for the future of not only America, but Western civilization as a whole.” Noor often shares her views on Twitter. Back in May she tweeted a picture of herself in a MAGA jumpsuit with a string of hashtags connected to QAnon.
TROOPS HAVE THEIR SAY: In last week’s Dead Drop we reported on a Military Times poll that measured the preferences of active duty troops in the upcoming presidential election. But the pollsters didn’t limit themselves to election questions. The same outfit asked military members what groups they see as significant national security threats. China came in first with 86.5 %, cyber terrorists were close behind at 85.9%. ISIS, Al Qaeda and foreign terrorists at 48.1% narrowly beat out the threat posed by white nationalists at 47.6%. The survey also questioned respondents about whether bases named for Confederate leaders should get re-branded. Almost half said “yes” and 14% had no opinion. There was considerably more support for the banning of Confederate battle flags and other symbols from public spaces on military installations with 69.3% saying “yes.”
MASS CASUALTY: First, there were plans to shutter the military newspaper Stars and Stripes because the Pentagon could not find $15.5 million in its $700+ billion annual budget to keep it going. That plan was apparently derailed at the last minute when the president came under fire for allegedly saying unflattering things about the troops. (Note: despite tweeting that he saved Stripes – there are reports that the order to shutter the paper still has not been rescinded.) Now, we get word that the Navy is saving money by cutting Catholic church services in San Diego. Apparently, there is a shortage of priests on active duty as Navy chaplains and so for many years, the service has contracted with local priests to come aboard Southern California bases and say mass. There are enough protestant chaplains on active duty to avoid contracting out their services. The San Diego Union Tribune quotes Vice Admiral Yancey Lindsey tossing out a host of buzz words to defend axing the fill-in San Diego padres. “We have a responsibility to use our limited resources wisely in meeting the needs of our personnel,” he said. “Therefore, we will reduce redundancies and capture efficiencies by realigning resources.” Now, we’re not interpreters, but that translates to us as: if you are Catholic in San Diego, go to church off base. What goes unexplained in the news stories about the decision is: how much does it cost to hire a priest? What with the vow of poverty and all – it shouldn’t be that expensive, right? Maybe the Navy could negotiate a more favorable rate. If only the administration had someone who understood the art of the deal.
CRAZY TRAIN: For the low, low price of only $25 a month you can receive a complete training package from a genuine (sort of) former CIA officer. The Daily Beast says Kevin Shipp, a guy who describes himself as “the only CIA officer in history to publicly expose government illegal activity and cover up, stand up against the state secrets privilege at great personal risk, and build a secret code in the manuscript of his book,” will train you on the inner workings of the Agency. Shipp was assigned to an Army weapons depot near San Antonio, Texas about 20 years ago – and sued the Agency over mysterious health effects his family suffered. He wrote a book a decade later. The Daily Beast says Shipp more recently made an appearance in a viral QAnon conspiracy movie called “Out of Shadows” Meanwhile, he has come to some important conclusions such as: “Hollywood is run by Satanist pedophiles, vaccines can trigger autism, JFK Jr. was assassinated, and a decades-long Marxist campaign to establish a global government and remove the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments has taken root in Congress.”
PROBABLY JUST AN OVERSIGHT: Remember last week’s Dead Drop, where we mentioned that critical opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post were (according to our spies) were not showing up in the CIA’s daily compilation of important news clippings? We also mentioned the Agency’s past denial that they were not intentionally withholding material – they just chose to “highlight” some of the news. Well, our spies told us that on Thursday, Media Highlights failed to include a Washington Post story that former Trump administration Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, in an on-the-record interview, criticized his successors decision to suspend in-person briefings to Congress on election security. Oddly, his interview came on the heels of an OPED in The Washington Post by his former deputy Sue Gordon decrying how “the conversation around election security has turned vitriolic, diversionary, and unhelpful, and we are doing our enemies work for them.” That piece, we are told, did make it into the highlights earlier in the week. Coat’s somewhat more blunt criticisms of the current regime however, did not.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
HARD (CORE) TARGET: Every September you can count on a documentary or two coming out revisiting aspects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Brace yourself for next year’s 20th anniversary when there are bound to be dozens). But this year, National Geographic has found an interesting angle. On September 10, the network premiered “Bin Laden’s Hard Drive” in which veteran journalist Peter Bergen does a deep dive into the digital materials recovered from Bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout in 2011. Among the things discussed is the “fairly extensive” collection of pornography found. The Daily Beast reports (with some apparent regret) that the documentary does not get very specific about “precisely what kinky craziness bin Laden was watching” but it raises the possibility that the terrorist leader might have been hiding encrypted instructions in his porn stash “a devious means of avoiding detection by marrying murderous command to the very sort of sinful content he purportedly decried.” Maybe, but we lean toward the explanation of Reid Meloy, described as a forensic psychologist and CIA consultant who said: “biology trumps ideology.”
TEA TIME: One of our fantastic Cipher Brief interns turned us on to this: a prominent Russian state media website recently published an article, “Russians told for whom drinking tea is dangerous.” Turns out it is a benign piece touting the benefits of caffeine for healthy persons etc…but considering the Novichok poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny – is the Kremlin sending none-to-subtle signals?
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