Without speaking to the particulars of the Greco case, counterintelligence investigations often morph in corruption ones, b/c spy services try to compromise public officials via their greed. Worth noting NYT reported the Homan probe started as a CI investigation—though we don’t know what country.

Forcing out your hand-picked prosecutor because he won’t pursue indictment of political enemies due to lack of evidence: not something that transpires in a country with a functioning rule of law.

The FBI used hidden cameras to record Tom Homan taking a $50,000 bribe (in cold, hard cash) last year from undercover agents posing as business executives who Homan promised government contracts in a new Trump administration. The Trump DOJ has now shut down the probe. www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...

Not simply because I reported this @wired.com feature on Trump 1.0’s covert action campaign to overthrow Maduro—but I would take a look at it after you read this new reporting, because it’s not hard to see what’s potentially coming. www.wired.com/story/trump-... www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/u...

I experienced this last week & refused, saying I had never before been asked to provide the names of any analysts I was planning to quote to get a comment. Spox replied that maybe they were D donors. (In that case, it was 3 retired top military JAG officers.) I guess that was not a weird oneoff.

Kash Patel's notes during his congressional testimony as photographed by Getty: "Good fight with Swalwell"

So here's a fun fact: FBI policy for years has been to release the lion's share of records about someone once they are deceased. Doesn't matter who it is. If they have a file on Gandhi, they release it. If they have a file on Kissinger, they release it. You just have to file a FOIA.

*extreme William Colby voice* “We’re just Honorable Men”

Yes! And written by the brilliant novelist James Salter.

There’s a term for viewing the executive as the sole representative of the will of the demos, and it ain’t “democracy.”

As a longtime West Coast-based reporter who has had problems being considered for staff positions because of my location, I find this news particularly galling

Every headline talking about Kimmel being suspended for his “Kirk comments” is journalistic malpractice. He was suspended for comments about MAGA opportunists exploiting Kirk’s death, after the FCC chair issued a Mafioso threat.

Since we’re sharing films by the great Robert Redford, a lesser-known one I recommend is “Downhill Racer,” a truly fantastic sports movie about skiing, written by the brilliant James Salter, author of “Light Years” and “All That Is.” (And If you haven’t read ”Light Years,”: what a book.)

The nauseating superficiality of the commitment of many American elites to basic tenets of liberal democracy will have be a first-principle for any political order going forward.

WGA Statement on ABC’s Decision to Pull Jimmy Kimmel Live!

I keep thinking we're radically underestimating the psychological and affective impact the climate crisis is having on us. In a worst-case scenario, in a historical treatment of the period we're in now, it would be at the heart of the epochal end time, not a preceding period or prelude to the end.

As mutually friend of ours told me a long time ago, if the WH, DoJ, and the CIA are all on the same sheet of music and it is deemed legal than no one is going to prosecute.

This is a difficult piece of information to absorb and speak about plainly, but it’s worth at least trying to do so.

This is an extremely basic point, but one that bears repeating: in a law-governed society, the state cannot simply murder people it has identified as potential criminals. It does not matter if those alleged criminals are foreigners. If you illegally kill people, you have committed murder.

The ideological shift in America, in the span of just a few years, from “free markets” to “select industrial policy in the service of great power competition with China“ to “unapologetic crony capitalism“ is legitimately one of the most shocking political developments of my lifetime.

Very cool and normal to have the current FBI director and former HPSCI chair interacting like this.

so the Atlantic ended up paying Ruth Shalit Barrett more than $1m for her retracted article about high school sports which I think works out to infinity dollars a word

Cancel culture is so pernicious, we must cancel liberal democracy

Intelligence history nerds: Has anyone done research into the quasi-private, quasi-governmental OSS offshoot called “World Commerce Inc” that seems to have functioned as a covert finance network in postwar Europe?

Uhhhhhh… Next week might get even weirder than i already thought it was gonna

Vigilantes are driving talent out of our force. I’d propose that anyone wanting to force someone out of their voluntary commitment of service to defend our country be required to replace them.

Imagine QAnon, but weaponized by an intelligence service.

America has now entered its “nothing is true, and everything is possible“ phase of Arendtian decay. If I’m a well-resourced bad actor abroad, I’m rubbing my hands with glee. It’s pathetic.

Society-wide epistemic collapse has to got be like playing on cheat mode for spy services undertaking covert propaganda and influence efforts. Has America ever been an easier mark than it is now?

Look, you can’t just throw “allegedly“ in front of anything and call it a day as a journalist. “She was a proponent of the unsubstantiated theory that there are no cats in America, and the streets are allegedly paved with cheese”

“Unsubstantiated,” “allegedly”

Slowly absorbing Seth Harp’s “Fort Bragg Cartel,” which is a tough but compelling read.

In Europe, Putin is continuing to bombard Ukrainian cities, targeting civilians en masse, committing likely war crimes; in the Middle East, Israel bombed Qatar, which hosts the largest U.S. military base in the region, infuriating Gulf states and throwing the U.S. security umbrella there into doubt;

The headline undersells it. Infidels are a GWOT veteran, anti-Muslim biker gang. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Superb reporting here. www.reuters.com/investigatio...

People should ask themselves why it isn't.

Somewhere along the way, Israel’s twisted logic of deterrence gave way to a philosophy where lethal action became an end of itself, untethered entirely to broader political objectives (and, critically, a recognition of constraints). No statecraft, only force of arms.

And U.S. forces at Al Udeid are there to provide air defenses. Likely to call into question the value of hosting U.S. bases.

The president can’t break the law if the court rules the president can’t break the law. The administration can’t defy a court order if the court never rules against the administration. Elegant jurisprudence. Bravo.

The president can’t break the law if the court rules the president can’t break the law. The administration can’t defy a court order if the court never rules against the administration. Elegant jurisprudence. Bravo.

The planned UFC bout on the White House lawn is suddenly making a lot more sense.

The targeting of civilian boats in VZ is in some ways the maritime version of the CIA's illegal program in the 1990s targeting civilian planes in the region detailed by @tim-weiner.bsky.social in his new book.

Senator Rand Paul directly and forthrightly takes on JD Vance: "What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial."

But that and GWOT rot more generally is a core part of the answer to the question, "how did DoD just shrug and carry out an order for a lethal strike with basically no legal justification?"

Ofc obviously the legal justification from OLC still matters for other reasons, even if you could drive a truck through some of the reasoning and it was transparently post hoc justification for a decision that was already made

Was having a discussion about all this where Al-Awlaki came up and how as a *practical* matter "DoD, the CIA, and the NSC decided they wanted to kill a guy and the President agreed" isn't all that different from "haha go blow up that boat," even with OLC writing a memo for the former

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to keep secret the names of two associates of Jeffrey Epstein who received $100,000 and $250,000 from him in 2018, NBC reports.

As the author of this piece, I too find it perplexing.

Wario Intelligence Agency