New in SpyWeek: Biden’s FBI Probed Bolton, Tulsi Purge Exposed Top CIA Russia Expert
Gabbard hires RFK Jr. daughter-in-law to “modernize” U.S. intelligence, plus other nuggets from the week in spy world
Rampage: The Trump-Gabbard campaign to whittle down U.S. spy agencies to a pencil nub continued this week by naming and shaming 37 intelligence professionals by publicly stripping their security clearances, rendering them fired without warning (or cause) and probably short-circuiting any future employment as expert consultants to their former employers. Among them: An undercover senior CIA officer who briefed Trump in advance of his Aug. 15 Alaska Summit with Vladimir Putin.
“Four days later, the CIA officer — whom The Washington Post is not naming for her protection — was at work at the spy agency’s Langley headquarters when she was abruptly ordered to report to the security office. She was informed that her clearance to look at classified material was being stripped. In a span of minutes, her 29-year career in public service was essentially over. The officer had been expecting an imminent move to Europe to take up a prestigious assignment approved by CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Gabbard published the 37 names in a post on X. (The Washington Post). She aims to cut the bloated ODNI workforce by 40 percent, back to its originally authorized post-9/11 size.
RFK III wife to ODNI: Gabbard has hired Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, a former CIA ops officer who was a campaign manager for her stepfather Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s brief presidential run, to oversee “modernising the US intelligence community,” reports the Paris-based Intelligence Online. Fox Kennedy, who worked for the CIA from 2002 to 2010, holds the title of Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Policy and Capabilities and Associate Director for Intelligence and International Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget.She is also a member of President Trump's Intelligence Advisory Board.
Greenland Coup: Danish officials were none too happy last week when investigative reporters for its national broadcasting service reported that “at least three people with connections to President Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland,” with the suspected aim of creating conditions for a U.S. takeover of the icy, mineral-rich realm. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said "any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Kingdom [of Denmark] will of course be unacceptable.” The U.S. response? "We think the Danes need to calm down.” They didn’t admit to any skullduggery. (BBC)
Bolton Probe: The investigation of former Trump national security adviser John R. Bolton “began to pick up momentum during the Biden administration, when U.S. intelligence officials collected information that appeared to show that he had mishandled classified information, according to people familiar with the inquiry,” The New York Times reported. “The United States gathered data from an adversarial country’s spy service, including emails with sensitive information that Mr. Bolton, while still working in the first Trump administration, appeared to have sent to people close to him on an unclassified system, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case that remains open.”
More Kash Kaos: The FBI director’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, is suing ex-agent Kyle Seraphin for defamation for calling her a “former Mossad agent” and suggesting her relationship with [Kash] Patel is an Israeli “honeypot,” reports CNBC. Seraphin, a rightwing podcaster who calls himself a “recovering FBI agent,” parried her allegations, saying that “similar claims about Wilkins have previously surfaced on social media.” Wilkins wants $5 million from Seraphin for “using this fabricated story as self-enriching clickbait.”
FBI/MAGA: Pam Bondi’s DoJ has reached friendly settlements with a group of current and former FBI agents who alleged they were disciplined for invoking pro-Trump personal and political views about Jan. 6 and the COVID-19 vaccine and for butting heads with supervisors about the Biden administration’s aggressive approach to Jan. 6 rioters. “Empower Oversight, a group founded and led by former staff members of Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, announced the resolutions of 10 cases, including eight settlements in the last few weeks, The Associated Press reported. “Those being reinstated include Steve Friend, who has said he was suspended and later resigned after refusing to participate in a SWAT team arrest of a Jan. 6 suspect, and also objected to a COVID vaccine mandate.”
Long Arms of Beijing: You’ve read about China’s aptly named “Salt Typhoon” cyber infiltration of U.S. telecommunications and other targets, including Donald Trump’s phone calls, plenty of times here before. Now the FBI says Beijing’s cyber spies hit more than 80 countries over several years “in a campaign to a far greater extent than investigators initially understood,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “The scope of the intrusion allowed Chinese intelligence officers to potentially surveil U.S. citizens’ private communications and track their movements around the globe,” Brett Leatherman, the FBI’s top cyber official, told the paper. Chinese agents, meanwhile, have been getting deeply involved in local U.S. elections in New York’s Chinese communities and elsewhere, with the goal of stamping out any pro-Taiwan sentiment, reports the New York Times.
Saudis/9-11: Families seeking to establish Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks notched a court victory Thursday when a federal judge rejected the kingdom’s bid to have their suit dismissed. The case revolves around the activities of Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi in California who “seemed to serve as a connecting point between the hijackers and many other people who had provided assistance to the hijackers at one point or another,” the judge wrote, saying his activity was “inconsistent with his official employment title” as an accountant for a Saudi aviation company.
Israeli Hits: Israeli warplanes were able to take out members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council meeting in a bunker 100 feet below a mountain slope in the western part of Tehran on June 16 by tracking their bodyguards’ cell phones. (New York Times)
Target Venezuela: U.S. P-8 spy planes have been spotted flying off Venezuela, possibly in concert with an unusual buildup of U.S. naval forces in the southern Caribbean. “Part of the buildup is the USS San Antonio, USS Iwo Jima, and USS Fort Lauderdale, Reuters reported.”The ships are carrying 4,500 service members, including 2,200 Marines,” sources said. Trump administration officials have been threatening to use military force on drug cartels in Mexico and South America.
Moscow Mischief: American and allied officials say “Russia or its proxies are flying surveillance drones over routes that the United States and its allies use to ferry military supplies through eastern Germany, collecting intelligence that could be used to bolster the Kremlin’s sabotage campaign and assist its troops in Ukraine.”
Spies on Stage: Remember Operation Mincemeat, the legendary World War Two caper in which British intelligence agents, including Ian Fleming, floated a corpse ashore in Spain with phony war plans about a supposed Allied invasion of Greece? It’s now a musical! “The show, a hit in England before arriving in New York last spring, gets big laughs from this absurd tale of deception,” the New York Times reports. “In a rousing number, ‘God That’s Brilliant,’ the conspiring spies sing rapturously as they plot to kill Hitler.”
Pocket Litter
A former U.S. defense contractor identified only as “Martin D,” has been charged in Germany with offering military secrets to China.
UK defense chiefs are ordering new spy-proof acoustic ear pods so “staff can hold secret meetings inside highly sensitive headquarters” without somebody listening in. (The Sun)
A soldier in New Zealand was sentenced to two years in military prison for attempted espionage. The perp’s foreign handlers were not identified but it’s all but certain they were Chinese. (A.P.)
Former CIA ops officer and spy thriller writer extraordinaire David McCloskey has offered a “starter pack” for readers interested in the genre but don’t know where to begin.
The Netherworld is real, and takes holidays here.