The Trump administration’s war on the so-called “deep state” has achieved some success. This isn’t the stuff of conspiracy theories. It’s the stuff of congressional hearings and presidential nominations. There is an ongoing struggle for control of the U.S. intelligence community, and Trump has made real but limited progress in bending the intelligence agencies to...
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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...
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...
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Britain Unplugs Huawei From Its 5G Networks
In a victory for the Trump administration, the British government has decided to ban technology built by Huawei, the global telecom giant, based in China. The British decision heals a rift that was splitting the two biggest partners in the Five Eyes signal intelligence alliance. The Five Eyes is the world’s largest intelligence collection enterprise,...
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Pursuing Peace, Moon Promotes One Spy Chief and Picks Another
South Korean president Moon Jae-in has shuffled his security advisers in a bid to keep alive his campaign to formally end the Korean war and denuclearize the peninsula. While Washington-centric pundits focus on the erratic diplomacy of President Trump and the brinksmanship of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Moon is the most impressive of the three...