“JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story” is a most unusual thing: a novel with footnotes. In the 1960s, the New Journalists adopted the techniques of novelists to spice up their reporting. Author Jesse Kornbluth offers a 21st century variation. He imports the apparatus of academia to give ballast to the true tale of a...
Category: United States
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Who Is John Durham and Why Is He Investigating the CIA?
John Durham’s name floats in and out of news cycle, a phantom figure who presence is fleeting but significant. Durham is the career Justice Department attorney, assigned by Attorney General William Barr, to investigate the origins of the FBI”s investigation of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian state agents. In right-wing media Durham is...
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Trump Blocked Brennan’s Access to CIA Records. Is that a Bad Thing?
John Brennan has published a memoir, much to President Trump’s distress. In the book the former CIA director reveals the president ordered the CIA not to share classified information with him while he was writing the book, a courtesy normally extended to former officials. “Courtesy” and “Trump” are two words that co-exist uneasily in any...
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The Looming Crisis of Emergency Powers and the 2020 Election
(This article was first published in Just Security) By Mark Medish and Joel McCleary The future of electoral democracy in the United States is, without exaggeration, at risk. While a global pandemic and economic meltdown could provide a pretext for this threat, it does not come from abroad. Instead the threat comes from our own...
Ex-CIA Biden Adviser Avril Haines, Scrubbed Palantir from Her Resume
Avril Haines, a former deputy CIA director who is now advising presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, has scrubbed her resume. Haines once listed herself as a consultant to Palantir, a data mining firm Not any more. Haines’s biography on the Brookings site was captured by the Wayback Machine, which archives websites, on May 9. At that...