New in SpyWeek: CIA & Venezuela, Russian Subs, Bolton, Putin ‘Handling’ Trump, FBI Visits

Welcome to Spy Week, a curated compilation of important events at the intersection of intelligence, foreign relations and military operations.

With intelligence suppirt from the CIA, Trump has deployed the world’s biggest aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, to the Caribbean (US Navy photo)

CIA/Venezuela: “The Central Intelligence Agency is providing the bulk of the intelligence used to carry out the controversial lethal airstrikes by the Trump administration against small, fast-going boats in the Caribbean Sea suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela,” Aram Roston exclusively reported Tuesday in the Guardian, based on “three sources familiar with the operations.” Roston’s scoop came as no shock, given that President Trump has confirmed reports that he’s authorized the spy agency to conduct a covert action campaign against the regime of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro. Not mentioned: the shadowy role of Gary Berntsen, a former CIA station chief in Bolivia (who performed heroically in the post-9/11 hunt for Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan) in allegedly supplying the administration with information baselessly connecting Maduro to the Tren de Aragua criminal drug gang’s “invasion” of the U.S. No evidence has surfaced, meanwhile, that the boats Trump (illegally) ordered blown up were carrying drugs. Nor is any likely forthcoming from the agency, Mark Lowenthal, a former assistant director for analysis for the CIA, told Roston. “They are going to claim it’s classified and they are not going to release it publicly,” he said. “And they may be right. They have all sorts of exemptions in law.”

Grand Theft Russia: “Russia is protecting its nuclear submarine fleet in the Arctic with an undersea surveillance system built using high-tech equipment acquired from U.S. and European companies through a secret procurement network, according to newly uncovered financial records, court documents and Western security officials,” The Washington Post’s Greg Miller reported Thursday.