New in SpyWeek: Run Silent, Run Deep

A daring SEAL mission in North Korea, an intel hole in the Caribbean strike, a Chinese cyber octopus, and more Russia skullduggery lead the news

Cold Water Wash:  There’s an old saying in the special ops world: “Ask forgiveness, not permission.” Team Trump has mastered the second part, anyway, according to a blockbuster New York Times piece this week. In the first Trump administration, officials neglected to tell congressional overseers about an ultra-daring op in early 2019 for Navy SEALs to swim ashore in North Korea and plant a listening device to eavesdrop on perpetual enfant terrible Kim Jong Un. “They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right,” reported Times staff writer Dave Philipps and freelancer Matthew Cole. It didn’t. The SEALs got spooked by what they feared was a North Korean naval patrol boat nearby.