[This piece first appeared in The New Republic, Feb. 12, 2020] When President Trump used his State of the Union address to call on Congress to pass legislation allowing crime victims to sue sanctuary cities for offenses committed by undocumented immigrants, CIA director Gina Haspel rose to her feet clapping. It was an unusual display...
Category: CIA
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Barr Says Investigation into CIA’s Russia Findings Continues
Even a global plague won’t stop Attorney General Bill Barr from pursuing former CIA director John Brennan. The latest on the investigation of U.S Attorney John Durham comes from the Washington Examiner: Durham was appointed last year by Barr to review possible misconduct by federal law enforcement and intelligence officials in the Russia investigation. The...
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Counterterrorism: A Woman’s Game
From The Interpreter, an Australian blog about international politics. two recently published books on counterterrorism, intelligence, and national security fly in the face of the notion that counterterrorism and national security is a man’s game and show that when it comes to gender and counterterrorism, there is much more than meets the eye. The first...
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‘Fiasco’ Podcast Excavates the Iran-Contra Conspiracy
The Iran-Contra scandal of the late 1980s was precursor to today’s “deep state” politics. The Reagan White House, in cahoots with the CIA, organized a conspiracy to bypass Congressional restrictions on U.S. aid to contra rebels in Nicaragua. It was an unconstitutional and illegal scheme that resulted in dozens of criminal indictments, including charges against...
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Opinion: Intel Chiefs Stay Silent on Trump’s Purge
Last month, I wrote a story of Trump’s machinations around the Office of Director of National Intelligence under the headline, “Trump’s Intelligence Rattles National Security Establishment.” Kent Harrington, former CIA officer and later an agency spokesman, uses the same word. “There is no question that Trump’s latest round of firings qualify as a ‘purge,'” he...