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A contractor for the Pentagon has been charged with providing classified U.S. intelligence to a Lebanese national connected with terrorist group Hezbollah, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday. The department alleges Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, began transmitting the classified intelligence around December 30, when Iraqi militiamen stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Thompson is a linguist who at the time was working at a U.S. special forces base in Erbil in northern Iraq. The classified “files contained classified national defense information including true names, personal identification data, background information, and photographs of the human sources, as well as operations cables...

Lawmakers from both parties told Pentagon leaders on Wednesday that the Defense Department is undermining its own efforts to get military money by diverting billions of dollars for the construction of President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and the committee’s top Republican warned Defense Secretary Mark Esper that overturning congressional funding decisions to shift money for the wall is an enormous problem that will have consequences. The plan to shift money has triggered rare Republican opposition to one of Trump’s priorities. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said the result may be that Congress...

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Pentagon to halt its work on a controversial cloud-computing contract amid a court challenge by Amazon, notching a major win for the tech giant as it seeks to prove that President Trump improperly interfered to keep the $10 billion contract away from Amazon. The Court of Federal Claims is granting Amazon's request to stop the Pentagon from forging ahead with the cloud-computing project until the lawsuit is settled. The Department of Defense was planning to work with Microsoft, the company that received the contract over Amazon last year, to implement a sweeping cloud...

President Trump on Tuesday suggested that the Pentagon should review the conduct of a former White House national security aide who played a central role in the Democrats’ impeachment case and potentially consider disciplinary action against him. Army Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, who until last week was detailed by the Pentagon to the White House, testified before the House impeachment panel that Trump inappropriately pushed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Vindman was ousted from his job on the White House National Security Council on Friday, just two days after the...

The nominee for the Pentagon's second-highest personnel role has withdrawn from consideration for the post after an op-ed he wrote for The Federalist surfaced, sources tell Politico. A number of sources told the publication that J. David Patterson, who was nominated Jan. 9 for principal deputy undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, was withdrawing his name. The withdrawal stems from a 2017 op-ed that Patterson wrote for the conservative website, in which Patterson and co-author A.D.P. Efferson blame mass killings on immigrants who fail to assimilate to American culture. “One explanation for the rise in terrorist behavior in the...

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has instructed the Pentagon to ready military housing for 1,000 people as it prepares to quarantine those who may have the new coronavirus. "Earlier today, we have learned that Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved a request from the Department of Health and Human Services to provide DOD housing support for up to 1,000 people who may need to be quarantined as they travel back to the United States and may have been in places where they could've been exposed to the coronavirus," said CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. The news comes after Massachusetts confirmed the eighth...

INDIANOLA, Iowa -- Rep. Ilhan Omar, speaking at an event for Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday, made the shockingly dishonest claim that siphoning away just $20 billion from the defense budget would allow the federal government to provide health coverage for “every single uninsured American.” The real number is not isn’t even close. In a speech warming up the crowd for Sanders, Omar explained, “I believe, like Bernie, our foreign policy is domestic policy. We currently spend $700 billion in funding endless wars, and wasteful Pentagon spending, which is more than half of all discretionary spending. Do you know what...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has temporarily shelved a proposed rule change that would further restrict American sales to Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, after some officials in the Defense Department and other agencies argued that the measure, which was intended to protect national security, could actually undermine it, according to people familiar with the matter. The rule change, which multiple government agencies were reviewing, would close a loophole that allowed technology companies like Intel and Micron to continue shipping chips, software and other products to Huawei despite a ban that prevented the Chinese company from buying some American products....

The newly created United States Space Force has new uniforms to match. The unit's official Twitter account posted a picture of the new "U.S. Space Force" nameplate and "United States Space Command" patch and said the uniforms had "touched down in the Pentagon." The US Space Force has been in the works of President Donald Trump's administration since March 2018, and it was officially created alongside the US Space Command when the president signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act on December 20. **SNIP** "Space Force" trended on Twitter after the Department of Defense debuted the new uniforms, with many...

The surprise announcement from the Taliban that we’re about to sign a peace deal with them is being slightly overshadowed this week. While I’m sure plenty of people have been waiting for us to pull out of that quagmire, the release of a stack of Pentagon documents regarding the war will provide even more reason for concern. Assuming this is all true (and it certainly looks legitimate), the Pentagon and the rest of the government have been lying to us for years about how much of a “success” the war has been. And honestly… are we really all that...

There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters. Its more common name is “the Tank.” The Tank resembles a small corporate boardroom, with a gleaming golden oak table, leather swivel armchairs and other mid-century stylings. Inside its walls, flag officers observe a reverence and decorum for the wrenching decisions that have been made there. Hanging prominently on one of the walls is The Peacemakers, a painting that depicts an 1865 Civil War strategy session with President...

<p>DONALD JOHN TRUMP Coalition forms to back Trump rollback of major environmental law Canadian CEO blasts Trump over downed plane in Iran: 'I am livid' Business groups worry they won't see a Phase 2 Trump-China trade deal MORE plans to divert $7.2 billion from the Pentagon to go toward border wall construction this year, an amount five times greater than what Congress authorized in the budget, the Washington Post reported.</p>

The mystery surrounding Ukrainian International Flight 752 turns out to be not so mysterious after all. Both Newsweek and CBS now report that US and Iraqi officials have evidence that the Iranians mistakenly targeted the flight with anti-aircraft fire during their missile attack on American positions in Iraq. Their assessment is not just based on the photos, but also on comms intel that shows Iranian military forces lighting up the flight on its radar before it burst into flames: The Ukrainian flight that crashed just outside the Iranian capital of Tehran was struck by an anti-aircraft missile system, a...

Pentagon officials believe the Iranian regime shot down Ukrainian Airlines Flight PS 752 with a Russian anti-aircraft missile Tuesday night. All 176 innocent civilians and the crew were killed. The victims were from Canada, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Iran. There were no Americans onboard.  "Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, a Boeing 737–800 en route from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airpot to Kyiv's Boryspil International Airport, stopped transmitting data Tuesday just minutes after takeoff and not long after Iran launched missiles at military bases housing U.S. and allied forces in neighboring Iraq. The aircraft is believed to have...

The top US general said Monday a letter suggesting the US would withdraw troops from Iraq was released by mistake and poorly worded, telling reporters "that's not what's happening." Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley sought to address the confusion that began after the leak of aletter to the Iraqi government from US Command in Baghdad suggesting US troops would be withdrawn from the country. "That letter is a draft. It was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should not have been released ... (it was) poorly worded, implies withdrawal, that is not what's happening," Milley...

No excerpt from Bloomberg allowed, story here. A free article is Contractors Use Shell Games to Hide Owners, Cheat Taxpayers. The GAO report is Ongoing DOD Fraud Risk Assessment Efforts Should Include Contractor Ownership.

Chinese activity beyond its borders does not inherently threaten America. The twin narratives of Trump ‘abandoning’ the Middle East and any Chinese presence as a threat to America are false. While his critics claim the president “eyes the exits” from the Middle East, they excoriate him for “abdicating a strong U.S. role” in the region, which some claim is enabling China’s rise. This common characterization of Trump’s foreign policy may be worrisome, but it is also demonstrably wrong.Far from eyeing the exits, Trump continues a concerning trend of deepening U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. As important, Chinese activity...

The Pentagon is warning military members against using consumer mail-in DNA tests over potential risks, a Department of Defense spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday. The Department of Defense is advising service members to instead receive DNA result information from a “licensed professional," spokeswoman Elissa Smith said. “We want to ensure all service members are aware of the risks of Direct to Consumer (DTC) genetic testing,” Smith said. “The unintentional discovery of markers that may affect readiness could affect a service member's career, and the information from DTC genetic testing may disclose this information.” She added that the information provided by private companies...

PRESTON COUNTY, W.Va. (WCHS/WVAH) — West Virginia State Police said Interstate 68 was shut down several hours Wednesday near the border with Maryland after threats were made to kill President Donald Trump and to blow up the Pentagon. A 42-year-old male has been detained for questioning after a search of the vehicle revealed a fiream and explosive powder, State Police said. State Police, the FBI and Secret Service are continuing to investigate. Troopers conducted a traffic stop about 10:30 a.m. for speeding in the eastbound lanes near Bruceton Mills. The traffic stop resulted in an investigation that led to the...

WASHINGTON - A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan...