THE THREAT BRIEFING IS IN THE MAIL: On the last Saturday of August, the Senate and House intelligence committees found out that the administration decided to forgo planned closed hearings about foreign threats to disrupt the November election and instead, decided to submit their views in writing. The decision did not go down well. Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, put the news in a letter that reached CNN and other media outlets hours before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got a copy – but you know how fickle the mail can be these days. Shortly thereafter, and his acting predecessor, Ric Grenell, separately appeared on Fox News explaining that the decision was made because the last time the Intelligence Community briefed the Hill on election threats – members of Congress quickly leaked sensitive information to the media. Former senior CIA officer (and Cipher Brief expert) wrote an OPED for the New York Times arguing that “intelligence professionals write to be easily understood, but also write to be interrogated. They know that in-person briefings are necessary because a document can be misread no matter how precise.” Former CIA Director John Brennan wrote in The Washington Post that he believes the decision to limit communication with the Hill on electoral interference suggests Ratcliffe “is bowing to White House pressure to stifle the flow of intelligence to Congress that might be detrimental to Trump.” Far be it from us to follow the logic trail, but if leaking is the reason for the change, why couldn’t Members of Congress just as easily leak material they receive in writing versus in person? Cipher Brief expert, said in a tweet: “This is not about fear of leaks. It is about fear that those testifying might commit truth.”
THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW: Moving a little further down the logic trail, we’re wondering if the DNI filed a “crimes report” about any leaks allegedly made by Members of Congress? There are long-standing procedures requiring notification of the Department of Justice when classified information spills into the public domain. So, if the Administration filed a report, would they tell us about it? When word hit the media about the Russians allegedly offering bounties to target U.S. troops in Afghanistan in June, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said the information came from “Some leaker, whoever it is, and I understand that there has been a crimes report filed by the CIA with the Department of Justice…” There are many other examples that have us doing some head scratching. For instance, in 2002, classified information about al Qai’da communications intercepts was provided to CNN during a closed-door Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11. In that case, The Washington Post later reported that federal investigators concluded that Senator Richard Shelby (R, AL) was the source, but then the trail went cold. If the administration didn’t bother to file a crimes report over this latest allegation of leaky lips on foreign election interference – would that mean there’s not a case?
SELDOM IS HEARD, A DISCOURAGING WORD: The aforementioned opinion pieces by former CIA officials John Sipher and John Brennan that appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post got fairly wide readership. One place they didn’t make a splash (according to our CIA sources) was in the Agency’s daily “Media Highlights.” That’s where the CIA prepares a document with dozens of important (and some not-so-important) news stories and circulates it to their workforce and the rest of the intelligence community. But our spies tell us that Sipher and Brennan’s pieces were missing this week. This is not a new trend. Other recent columns by former Acting Director Michael Morell (pieces that were critical of the administration) also failed to make the cut. The Cipher Brief asked officials once before about apparent intentional culling of critical opinion from their clips – and we were told that the daily mail is only meant to ‘highlight’ the stories in the news, not include all the stories.
STATE OF CONFUSION: The State Department-focused website Diplopundit says Foggy Bottom leaders are driving the Department crazy by demanding that those involved in purchasing ‘stuff’ at all their sites “get affidavits from *ALL* the companies around the world they order things from that they do not use Huawei, ZTE or several other Chinese manufacturers” by the end of this month. That’s a tall mission.
STILL MAKING COUNTRIES CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS: Just 65 years or so after it was first placed into service, the U-2 “Dragon Lady” spy plane is still attracting the attention of foreign nations. Veteran defense correspondent Tony Capaccio, writing in Bloomberg.com, says that a U-2 flying from South Korea to monitor Chinese military exercises near the Paracel Islands caused the People’s Liberation Army to launch “four medium-range ballistic missiles into the disputed body of water. The missiles landed harmlessly in the sea.” There are still more than 30 U-2’s in the USAF inventory. The plane provides capabilities that cannot be made obsolescent by drones and satellites.
POTUS PREFERENCE POLL: You can find a poll to support or shoot down just about anything these days and you only need to think back to 2016 to find examples of how wrong polls can be. But nonetheless, a recent presidential preference poll in Military Times caught our eye. A poll done in late July and early August in partnership with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University reported that nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) had an unfavorable view of the president, compared to about 38 percent who had a favorable one. Questions in the poll had a margin of error of up to 2 percent. In October 2016, the same pollsters showed Trump with a 20% lead over Hillary Clinton among members of the military. The most recent poll showed him about four points behind Joe Biden.
MUSEUM NEWS: A little pandemic is not enough to keep a good museum down. The National Cryptologic Museum has begun offering full virtual tours for groups of six or more. This is by appointment only. Meanwhile, the International Spy Museum has something they call “Teachertini Tuesdays” – which are free webinars for educators. The sessions offer a “virtual sneak-peek” at the museum’s workshop offerings and digital resources.
THE WRITE STUFF: An outfit called the North American Society for Intelligence History took to twitter recently to observe conventional wisdom is that U.S. intelligence operations officers frequently write books about their exploits but that few intelligence analysts write autobiographies or are the subjects of biographies. The succeeding series of tweets proved that is not true, citing a number of recent analyst memoirs including some you can find reviewed in The Cipher Brief.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
DRONE WARS: The FAA recently gave Amazon approval to operate its Prime Air delivery drones. Guess who is looking askance at the decision. No, not the Post Office or Walmart. RT (formerly known as Russia Today) At least that’s the impression you get from their wordy headline: “World’s richest man, who has history of working with the CIA, gets official approval to unleash Amazon drones on the US.” It never occurred to us that Amazon’s drones might be a CIA plot, but we have Russia to thank for that insight.
YOU SANK MY BATTLESHIP! OK, not a battleship. But “You sank my amphibious cargo ship” does not have the same ring to it. On Sunday, the ship formerly known as USS Durham completed her final mission for the naval service by serving as a target for Navy units exercising off of the coast of Hawaii. The Navy released video of the ship being hit by a variety of missiles and rapidly losing its seaworthiness. The video stops before the ship heads due south – perhaps to avoid upsetting all the sailors who served aboard it for 25-years.
SPY ANY NEWS? SEND SAME: Got any tips we can sink our teeth into? Fire them our way at: TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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