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ANALYSIS/OPINION: One of the more disconcerting revelations from the long-anticipated FISA memo released by the House Intelligence Committee Friday was that the FBI had barely begun a verification process of the Russian dossier when they used it to justify a FISA surveillance warrant on Carter Page. Meanwhile the media refused to publish the dossier allegations because they could not be verified. In short: The media had higher standards than the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The dossier, a compilation of political opposition research compiled at the behest of the Hillary Clinton for President campaign, was peddled to multiple media outlets in...

An FBI informant has apparently informed Congress that a secret society at the FBI was holding secret meetings off-site after the election of Donald Trump. On Special Report with Bret Baier Tuesday evening, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) called it "corruption of the highest levels of the FBI." "That secret society — we have an informant that's talking about a group that were holding secret meetings off-site," Johnson said. "There is so much smoke here."

WASHINGTON — A former C.I.A. officer suspected by investigators of helping China dismantle United States spying operations and identify informants has been arrested, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. ... The counterintelligence investigation into how the Chinese managed to hunt down American agents was a source of friction between the C.I.A. and F.B.I. ... Mr. Lee had previously traveled to the United States in 2012 to live with his family in Virginia. It was during that trip that F.B.I. agents searched his luggage during hotel stays in Hawaii and Virginia and found two small books with handwritten notes that contained...

A former C.I.A. officer suspected of helping China identify the agency’s informants in that country has been arrested, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. Many of the informants were killed in a systematic dismantling of the C.I.A.’s spy network in China starting in 2010 that was one of the American government’s worst intelligence failures in recent years, several former intelligence officials have said. The arrest of the former officer, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, capped an intense F.B.I. investigation that began around 2012 after the C.I.A. began losing its informants in China.... Mr. Lee, who left the C.I.A. in 2007...

Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, also known as Zhen Cheng, was arrested after arriving at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. A naturalized U.S. citizen, he began working for the CIA as a case officer in 1994 and maintained a top-secret clearance, according to a Justice Department announcement. The department alleges that Mr. Lee and his family left Hong Kong to return to the U.S. While traveling back to the United States, Mr. Lee’s family stayed in hotels in Hawaii and Virginia, where FBI agents conducted court-authorized searches of Lee’s room and luggage, the Justice Department said.

Military historian Max Boot's new book asks if the Vietnam war could have been won if CIA operative Edward Lansdale's advice had been heededI was with an acquaintance who had participated in the agency’s secret air operations in Laos during the 1960s. After exchanging cards, my friend popped a question: Did Colby think that history could have been changed and over a million deaths averted if the US had accepted Ho Chi Minh’s offer of an alliance at the end of World War II? Colby, who oversaw a CIA counter-insurgency program in Vietnamese villages that killed upwards of 40,000...

Back in May, the New York Times scored one of their biggest 'hits' to date on Trump when they secured 4 memos drafted by James Comey allegedly summarizing direct conversations with the President (we covered it here: Comey's Revenge: Leaks Memo To NYT Saying Trump Asked Him To End Flynn Investigation). Among other things, the memos asserted that Trump directly asked Comey to end his investigation of Michael Flynn and to pledge "loyalty" to him. Of course, as we all know by now, Comey did not pass his memos directly to the New York Times but instead used an intermediary,...

China is using fake LinkedIn profiles to gather information on German officials and politicians, the German intelligence agency (BfV) has said. The agency alleges that Chinese intelligence used the networking site to target at least 10,000 Germans, possibly to recruit them as informants. It released a number of fake profiles allegedly used for this purpose. BfV head Hans-Georg Maassen said the accounts show China's efforts to subvert top-level German politics. "This is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate in particular parliaments, ministries and government agencies," he said. China has denied similar allegations of cyber espionage in the past and has not...

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After the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) had warned that China was trying to recruit German informants for intelligence services via social media networks, Beijing denied these accusations on Monday. They are “baseless accusations” for which there is no evidence, said Lu Kang, a Chinese state department spokesman, adding that the relevant organizations and the German government should act “more responsibly.” The BfV had previously warned that Chinese intelligence were trying to infiltrate parliaments, ministries and authorities with informants, particularly via the professional social media network LinkedIn. […] The BfV added that the aim of Chinese...

The woman at the centre of the Profumo affair that helped define a decade, has died aged 75. Often presented her as a femme fatale behind the downfall of two powerful men, she spent much of her life trying to shake off that image. In 1963, she rocked the establishment when she had an affair with the Tory cabinet minister, John Profumo while also having a relationship with the Russian diplomat Yevgeny Ivanov at the height of the Cold War. Her life is the subject of a BBC series which will be filmed next year and outlines her upbringing in...

Hillary Clinton is reportedly in secret negotiations with ex-British spy Christopher Steele to buy a second 'dirty dossier' on Donald Trump . The second report allegedly contains more salacious charges against the President, a Clinton author claims. Last month, it emerged that Clinton's presidential campaign helped fund research that led to the now-infamous dossier of explosive allegations against Trump . Now, author Edward Klein claims former Clinton campaign aides, still reeling from the shock 2016 election loss, are in talks with former MI6 agent Steele, according to the Daily Mail . Klein claims an advisor told him: "Steele didn't release...

In January, I wrote in these pages about the Democrats’ dossier on Donald Trump. Much of what seemed likely about it at the time has since been confirmed. No surprise there. Hillary Clinton has confessed. But what is surprising is the general lack of appreciation for the significance of this sordid episode. Democrats have elevated delusion to an art form by insisting the funding of the dossier is irrelevant, and that what really matters is its unverified and unverifiable allegations of collusion between President Trump and Russia. Alternatively, the White House has asserted that the dossier proves that it was...

'This is something new for CSE,' says the agency, which is trying to shed its old reputationCanada's electronic spy agency says it is taking the "unprecedented step" of releasing one of its own cyber defence tools to the public, in a bid to help companies and organizations better defend their computers and networks against malicious threats. The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) rarely goes into detail about its activities — both offensive and defensive — and much of what is known about the agency's activities have come from leaked documents obtained by U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and published...

Hezbollah is a greater and more longstanding foundational threat to our homeland than ISIS. This was brought to the forefront last week when two Hezbollah operatives were arrested on charges of surveilling targets for the Iranian-backed terror group on our own soil. They were also naturalized citizens who were admitted from Lebanon as immigrants years ago. Sadly, this story received very little media coverage. President Trump would be wise to give a televised address making the case for his immigration moratorium and travel ban by using this case as a perfect case study for the need for smarter vetting and...

Having had his sentence for betraying the nation commuted by President Barack Obama, former soldier Chelsea Manning is making the rounds of various public speaking appearances. One of these took place in the Big Apple at the New Yorker Festival yesterday. When the question came up of the hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents he dumped out into the public sphere, Manning claimed that he had not, in fact, done anything wrong. The reason? They weren’t “intelligence documents” but rather “historical data.” And no… I’m not even kidding. (Fox News) Chelsea Manning on Sunday told a crowd at the annual...

A controversial Chinese billionaire in self-imposed exile blasted on Thursday what he said was a small clique of corrupt "kleptocrats" running China - as he also warned of a wave of Chinese spies being dispatched to the United States in recent months. "What they're doing is against humanity," said Guo Wengui, during an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, two days after a previously scheduled appearance at a think tank in the same city was postponed due to what he called heavy pressure from the Chinese government. "What the US ought to do is take action, instead of...

The ruling Chinese Communist Party is flooding the United States with its spies, according to exiled billionaire Guo Wengui, who is on Beijing's most-wanted list for a number of criminal charges. Guo, who also goes by the name Miles Kwok, revealed a document to the National Press Club in Washington on Thursday that he said backed up his claim that China has stepped up its U.S.-based spying operations, sending dozens of new operatives from the state security police to work in the country. "This document has been verified as genuine for us by government agencies in the U.S. and in...

Exiled billionaire Guo Wengui (aka Miles Kwok) claimed China is being controlled by a small clique of crooked high-level officials. Guo also said Chinese security officials earlier this year authorized an escalation of espionage efforts in the United States. Guo's earlier scheduled appearance at a Washington think tank was postponed due to what he said was heavy pressure by China. A controversial Chinese billionaire in self-imposed exile blasted on Thursday what he said was a small clique of corrupt "kleptocrats" running China — as he also warned of a wave of Chinese spies being dispatched to the United States in...

A woman accused of leaking classified information on Russia’s role in spreading misinformation during the 2016 election told FBI agents that her frustrations over Fox News prompted her to print out an intelligence report, stuff it in her pantyhose, and sneak it out of the National Security Agency office where she was working. Reality Winner told FBI agents she had repeatedly complained about Fox News being on the TV at the NSA office she worked in, according to a transcript of the interview submitted to court on Wednesday, Politico reported. According to the transcript, the 25-year-old linguist told the FBI...