UNWANTED TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES: New York Times journalist Robert Draper had a lengthy story over the weekend which alleged that U.S. intelligence officials writing a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Russian efforts to interfere with the upcoming 2020 election pulled some punches to avoid annoying the Commander in Chief. The story quotes former DNI Dan Coats on the record saying one of his staffers requested that he modify the assessment and that Coats declined. Shortly thereafter, the president showed Coats the door – earlier than expected. The implication in the article is that the NIE had something to do with his departure (though sources tell us there was already growing frustration on both sides of the relationship). The new acting DNI and other officials presided over the completion of the NIE which contained softened language. Instead of saying (as initially drafted) that the Russians favored the current president, it allegedly just said they figured their chances of improved relations with the U.S. would diminish with a different person in the Oval Office. Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell tweeted that if the story is true “it is the first example the public knows of the IC tailoring a written product to avoid angering POTUS. That would be the IC politicizing its own work.” Well, are the allegations true? DNI John Ratcliffe’s office issued a statement saying "This hyperpartisan smear piece with demonstrably false accusations against both the Trump Administration and the nonpartisan men and women of the Intelligence Community is embarrassing even for The New York Times." That raises an obvious question. What accusations in the piece are “demonstrably false”? ODNI Director of Strategic Communications Amanda Schoch Tweeted after the NYTimes piece was published that "Reports that a National Intelligence Estimate was manipulated or politicized are patently false. We stand by the integrity of our analytic process and the dedicated Intelligence Community officers who serve this nation." We dug a little deeper and an Intelligence Community official told us “The piece lacks an understanding of the rigorous and collaborative analytic process, mischaracterizes events, and confuses loosely sourced assumptions with facts.” A source familiar with the coordination process shared with The Dead Drop that the timelines in the NYTimes article aren’t accurate and said they seem to have been changed to ‘advance a false thesis’. Well, glad we got to the bottom of that one.
BEIRUT’S BAD LUCK CONTINUES: Is there any city on the planet with more bad experience at falling victim to explosions? Beirut was the scene of a horrific bombing of the U.S. embassy on April 1983 which resulted in 63 deaths. On October 23 of the same year, the U.S. Marine Barracks was bombed, killing 241 U.S. military personnel, and a barracks housing French paratroopers was also bombed killing 58 more. So, it was entirely understandable when a massive explosion took place in Beirut on August 4, that a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that it must have been a bomb. Initially, President Trump said that “his generals” told him it looked like an attack by a bomb of some kind. But Secretary of Defense Esper backed off from that – and then backed off from his back off. We noticed that former CIA officer Bob Baer jumped into the fray on cnn.com saying that based on his extensive experience in the Middle East (and after looking at the videos) he was convinced that “this is not just ammonium nitrate.” Baer was not saying the explosion was an attack, but he was convinced that there were military explosives involved. “You look at that orange ball (of fire), and it’s clearly…a military explosive.” But some other experts disagree. For example, Rachel Lance, a biomedical engineer writing for wired.com says “the chemical rearrangement of ammonium nitrate answers a lot of the public questions about the videos” and without getting all Bill Nye on you here –she says one of the byproducts of ammonium nitrate is the red or orange hued plumes. The folks at Bellingcat also did a deep dive on the science and say while an official explanation has yet to be confirmed, the signs all point to the 2.700 tons of ammonium nitrate that has been sitting in the port since 2013.
FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET: A company called “Hermeus” announced last week that it had landed a contract with the U.S. Air Force and the “Presidential and Executive Airlift Directorate” to work toward designing a hypersonic Air Force One capable of Mach 5. Don’t look for it any time soon, however. The current AF1 is set to be replaced by a new modified 747-8 sometime next year. By the time that one is sent to the boneyard, the Mach 5 replacement may be ready. The president will be able to use it to travel to Europe to have lunch with our allies (if we have any left) and be back to the White House in time for dinner.
HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT? The State Department says the reason Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wanted Inspector General Steve Linick fired was because of bad morale in the IG office. Fortunately, (or unfortunately as the case may be) this is not entirely a subjective opinion. The Partnership for Public Service conducts surveys of how happy folks are at various government entities. According to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) the most recent survey “showed that the IG had the third highest engagement score of any State subcomponent in 2019.” The outfit with the lowest employee engagement score? Pompeo’s own office which ranked 404th out of 420 subcomponents in the entire federal government.
NEW PLAYBOOK FOR DOD? Bloomberg reported Wednesday that President Trump has privately told people he plans to replace Secretary of Defense Mark Esper at the Pentagon after the election. In turn, Esper has told friends that after the votes are counted, he plans to take his ball and go home anyway. Despite earning the nickname in some circles “Yes-per” for agreeing with the Commander in Chief too much – Trump and his advisors apparently think the Secretary has failed the loyalty test. Should Trump win reelection – who might be next in line for the Pentagon? What about New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick? In a lengthy interview with Hugh Hewitt on the Salem Radio Network on Tuesday Trump said “If I ever had a military battle, I’d call Belichick up and say, ‘What do you think, what do you think? Give me a couple of ideas,’” adding “He’d be as good as any general out there.”
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
THE STATE OF SPAM: People in Russia and Iran reportedly have seen a sudden spurt of unsolicited text messages offering bounties for information about cyber threats to the upcoming U.S. election. The messages reportedly offer up to $10 million for information on interference in the November balloting. The messages reportedly were met with confusion and ridicule. Many recipients probably thought it was a scam sponsored by some bogus Nigerian prince. But no, according to Reuters the State Department confirmed that it was behind the campaign.
CRYPTIC COMMUNICATIONS: Going back at least forty years that we know of – the National Security Council staff has tapped military communications professionals to serve a tour handling strategic communication at the White House. But we were a little surprised last week to learn in Politico’s Playbook that Christian Heller, an active duty Marine Corps officer had just landed the gig. Surprised – because Heller is reportedly not a public affairs officer – trained in dealing with the media. Instead he comes from Fort Meade where he worked in the Marine Cryptologic Support Battalion as a cryptologic watch officer. We’re pretty sure Heller can break the code on dealing with the media. According to his LinkedIn bio he is a “transitioning Marine Corps intelligence officer and a Rhodes Scholar.”
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