New in SpyWeek: The Trump Tornado

The president-elect's picks for top national security posts stun official Washington, intelligence veterans and foreign allies.

Welcome to SpyWeek, our weekly newsletter, where we look at news from the intersection of intelligence, foreign policy, and military operations. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees for SecDef, DNI and CIA lead this week’s roundup.

Trum’s transition team is reportedly reconsidering its pick of Crusader enthusiast Peter Hegseth as SecDef.

HEGSETH HEDGE? Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary might consider washing off his Crusader tattoo before he meets with Arab heads of state should he ge the job, but then again, Pete Hegseth thinks germs aren’t real.

“Germs are not a real thing. I can't see them. Therefore, they're not real," the former Fox News weekend yakker said on TV  in 2019. He said he hadn’t washed his hands “in 10 years.” 

That’s not likely to go down well with Trump, a famous germaphobe.

In any event, Trump’s team may be considering washing their hands of him. They were said to be rethinking their Hegseth pick Friday after a report surfaced “about a woman’s claim that Hegseth assaulted her in a hotel in Monterey, California, after a Republican conference,” according to The Washington Post.