FOR WHOM THE WHISTLE BLOWS: DC insiders have been scratching their heads this week trying to figure out what is behind reports that the Acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has refused to allow the House Intelligence Committee to be briefed about an “urgent” whistleblower complaint filed with the IC Inspector General on August 12th. There doesn’t appear to be any provision in the law to allow the DNI to block his IG from communicating with Congress but that seems to be what is happening. HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff told CBS News that Maguire was not complying because he was “instructed not to, that this involved a higher authority, someone above (him).” Hmm. Wonder who that could be?
O’BRIEN WINS THE ROSE: Perhaps unsurprisingly, filling vacant senior administration positions recently has started to resemble TV reality shows. President Trump told a media pool on Air Force One Tuesday that he had narrowed the candidates to become National Security Advisor down to just five finalists. He identified them as: Ricky Waddell, Robert O’Brien, Keith Kellogg, Fred Fleitz, and “Sue Gordon Hagerty.” White House aides later said Trump meant “Lisa Gordon-Hagerty” the Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security rather than Sue Gordon who recently stepped down as PDDNI. Fleitz seemed like an odd choice for inclusion since he is a long-time acolyte of John Bolton who Trump just fired (or depending to whom you listen: forced to quit.) Picking Fleitz would be like marrying your ex-wife’s twin sister. An hour or so after Trump’s announcing the last group of survivors on NSC Island, White House Press Secretary (and member of the witness protection program) Stephanie Grisham corrected the President to say there were actually MORE than five candidates left. But the next morning the President tweeted that he had picked O’Brien, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department to become his 4th national security advisor. O’Brien’s claim to fame before this appointment was having been dispatched to Stockholm to try to spring rapper A$AP Rocky from the clutches of the Swedish authorities.
SELFLESS HEROES: When he became Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo promised to restore some of the swagger of the folks at Foggy Bottom. One step in that process is a recently launched initiative to recognize the “Heroes of U.S. Diplomacy.” The Department of State has announced that over the coming year they plan to honor the “heroes among us,” – people who have “displayed sound policy judgment, as well as intellectual, moral and even physical courage while advancing U.S. foreign policy goals.” The first person singled out was Elizabeth “Lizzie” Slater. According to her bio, Slater was deployed as an IT specialist to the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam in 1998. On her second day on the job the embassy was bombed. “When the blast went off, Ms. Slater was in a colleague’s office in the front part of the embassy building, a mere 50 feet from the detonation. Despite being injured in the bombing, Ms. Slater stayed on to reconstruct an operating embassy and its communication systems, to ensure that the post had communications back to Washington. Soon after, she transferred to the other bombsite at U.S. Embassy Nairobi to do the same work there. Ms. Slater’s service and actions in the face of adversity and during this defining moment in diplomatic history show her as a true champion and Hero of U.S. Diplomacy.”
SELF-DESCRIBED HEROES: As The Dead Drop has mentioned previously, former CIA officer Valerie Plame is running for Congress in New Mexico. She is out with a campaign ad that features some fancy driving – Plame behind the wheel of a Chevy Camaro raising a plume of dust as she drives backwards at high speed. The roaring image is superimposed with the CIA seal – just in case you missed the fact that Plame once worked for the Agency. The Washington Post’s fact checker gave Plame “three pinocchios” for her claim in the ad that Dick Cheney’s chief of staff leaked her identity to take revenge against her and her (then) husband Ambassador Joe Wilson. In the narration, Plame points out that President Trump pardoned Libby last year.
PERMANENT RECORD BREAKER: Former NSA and CIA employee and current fugitive from justice Edward Snowden has a new book out titled Permanent Record. The Justice Department filed suit against Snowden and his publisher this week seeking to seize all of Snowden’s proceeds from the book because (surprise!) he failed to submit the manuscript to intelligence community pre-publication review procedures as he is obliged to do. DOJ made clear that they are not trying to prevent publication or distribution of the book – they just want to make sure that Snowden is not enriched by flaunting the law. DOJ also made noises about going after speaking fees earned by Snowden who appears at events remotely from his Moscow hideout. It is unclear if Justice has any mechanism to capture any money the publisher, Macmillan, may have already paid Snowden in advance since it is unlikely to have been deposited in any U.S. bank. You can read the 26-page court filing here. The Snowden suit may be bad news for former CIA officer Amaryllis Fox who (as mentioned in last week’s Dead Drop) is in the process of publishing a memoir which has yet to be cleared by the Agency’s publication review folks.
NEW MEANING TO THE TERM: “COVER BAND” ABC News recently reported on how Darrell Blocker, a 32-year veteran of the intelligence community, used his singing talents while deployed under cover in Africa. Working out of embassies in places like Uganda, Blocker gained local fame as a moonlighting singer. He’s recently become an ABC News contributor following retirement this year. In an article ABC called: “Singer Tailor Soldier Spy: A CIA officer’s life as the frontman of one of Uganda's top bands,” Blocker reflected on his career. “Spying is easy, singing is hard,” he said.
QUOTH THE RAVEN: NEVERMORE: Last week the CIA released a menagerie of previously classified documents relating to the Agency’s past efforts to use cats, dogs, dolphins, fish and other critters for clandestine collection purposes. Some of the stories may be familiar to Agency vets, such as the ill-conceived idea of using cats as roaming listening devices. Other stories seem fresher – such as the tales of training ravens and crows to serve as “living sensors” able to drop in on places like chemical weapons facilities and then wing their way to the west. The best prospect reportedly was a Raven named “Do Da” who was believed to have the ability to “outwit the native ravens and gulls” which might attack him. Sadly, the bird disappeared on a training mission and has never again been seen to this Do Da day.
THE OLD MAN AND THE C(IA): The FX network is working on a CIA drama pilot based on the novel “The Old Man.” John Lithgow and Jeff Bridges have signed on to star. FX says: “The Old Man” centers on “Dan Chase” (Bridges) who absconded from the CIA decades ago and has been living off the grid since. When an assassin arrives and tries to take Chase out, the old operative learns that to ensure his future he now must reconcile his past.” Hollywood seems enamored with the name “Chase” – we remember that the ABC series (recently mercifully canceled) called “Whiskey Cavalier” featured a character named “Will Chase.”
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
MOST EMBARRASSING POST-GOVERNMENT GIG, EVER! PERIOD! Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer apparently missed being the butt of jokes, so he showed up on ABC TV’s “Dancing with the Stars (sic)” twirling around in a lime green puffy shirt that defies description. Press spokesman are well-known for tap dancing, but Spicer tripped the bright fantastic in a near universally panned performance. He seems to have sensed that the performance did not go down well with the judges because the next morning he took to twitter urging the public to “Stand for #Christ” and support him. He later deleted the tweet. If Spicer wins – it will be a sure sign of Russian election meddling.
MAYBE THEY COULD USE ONE OF THOSE AERIAL TANKERS: We are indebted to The Moscow Times for bringing us the story of Russian Orthodox priests who recently flew over the city of Tver and dumped holy water on those below as a blessing and prayer for an end to excessive “drunkenness and fornication.” The priest brought along 70 liters of holy water for the mission. No word on whether Tver is fornication free yet.
WHO WILL FACT-CHECK THE FACT-CHECKERS? We stumbled across a website called Rightwingwatch.org which pointed to a YouTube rant by some guy with an outfit called “Sons of Liberty” in which it was claimed that the fact-checking website SNOPES is in fact a CIA-run organization. Seems unlikely to us, but who can we get to fact check that claim?
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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