Free Republic

Former Central Intelligence Agency analyst John Gentry has written a scathing indictment of “unprecedented” attacks on President Trump. Gentry published his evaluation in the quarterly International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. His criticisms were both institutional and individual; people called out included CIA Director John Brenan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former deputy CIA director Michael Morell. “A considerable body of evidence, much of it fragmentary, indicates that many CIA people have left-leaning political preferences,” Gentry said, while hedging, “less evidence shows that political bias influences CIA analyses.” Gentry observed: “The attacks on Trump were unprecedented for intelligence...

A Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee says he is worried that the Russians “never left,” raising the specter that Moscow is looking to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections through cyber or other means. “I am concerned that the Russians never left,” Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) told CBS News when asked about his concerns about threats to the 2018 midterm elections. Quigley also alleged that Russia-linked hackers breached “somewhere between 20 and 40 state board of elections,” including the Illinois voter database, in 2016 and alleged that states are not prepared for future interference efforts by Russia. “First, they...

Avril Haines will be the first woman to be second in command at the CIA, but critics point not to her gender but her lack of CIA experience. Her choice suggests Obama wants a close ally. Plucking from a collection of high-powered female lawyers serving the White House, President Obama has nominated Avril Haines as the next deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. One former senior CIA official tells the Monitor that her nomination has prompted surprise among his former colleagues, not due to Haines’s gender, of course, but because she is a relative unknown in the community. He...

WASHINGTON – Countering resistance to President Donald Trump's pick for CIA director, the spy agency gave lawmakers a declassified memo Friday showing she was cleared years ago of wrongdoing in the destruction of videotapes showing terror suspects being waterboarded after 9/11. Gina Haspel is facing opposition from some Democrats and rights groups critical of her activities related to the shredding of 92 videotapes in 2005 and her overall role in the CIA's harsh interrogation program, which critics have portrayed as one of the shadiest chapters in the agency's history. Friday's release, however, did not satisfy opponents who want to know...

Feel the McMullinmentum. The big noise on tout les 'Toobz Monday morning was that this guy, Evan McMullin, a career spook who lives in Utah, announced that he would be running for president specifically as an anti-He, Trump candidate. This came at the same time as He, Trump was preparing to reset his campaign for the 400th time, this time before the Detroit Economic Club, selling out every sucker who thought of him even for a moment as a "populist," as we will see later in the day. Anyway, McMullin got some nice run on the morning cable news shows....

In hindsight, the most important thing said this year came on Jan. 3. Chuck Schumer, leader of Senate Democrats, warned President-elect Trump he would pay a price for disputing intelligence officials’ findings of Russian meddling. “Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer ­declared. Schumer was right about a vendetta, but wrong about timing. It’s now clear that intelligence officials already had started “getting back” at the next commander in chief. They started in the summer of 2016. In early August, Mike Morell, who was...

Michael Morell, former acting head of the CIA, became a political animal in August 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. This month, he came to grips with the consequences of that decision -- that it might have played into President Donald Trump's distrust of the intelligence community. It is possible, he told the Review Journal, "I played a role in that." Back to last year. In an opinion piece in The New York Times, Morell not only endorsed Clinton, he also warned that, to the eyes of an intelligence analyst, candidate Trump could be considered "an unwitting agent...

Former CIA Director Michael Morell sat down with Politico’s Susan Glasser, where he admitted that he and others from the intelligence community didn’t think through the consequences of them becoming political last year. Last year, Morell wrote an op-ed in The New York Times that endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Within the agency, Morell sharked his way up the halls of the CIA becoming the chief intelligence briefer to President George W. Bush, and then acting director twice. Intelligence analysts serve the country. There is no politics involved in any of their analyses—at least not until Trump was elected....

Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell thinks that intelligence agencies were too harsh to Trump during the campaign and presidential transition, according to an interview released Monday. Morell, who left the CIA in 2013 after serving as its acting director twice, endorsed Hillary Clinton in an August 2016 New York Times op-ed. Politico’s Susan Glassner asked Morell if getting involved was a mistake and the former CIA official said that it wasn’t, but that “there were downsides to it that I didn’t think about at the time.” “I was concerned about what is the impact it would have on the...

Kaspersky Ties to Russian FSB Revealed Kaspersky Labs, the Moscow-based security provider, has adamatly denied any ties to the Russian government. However, CBS News recently confirmed a certificate has surfaced confirming a relationship between the security firm and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). This certificate confirms the U.S. government’s concerns of ties between the security company and its government services. The relationship is concerning for many due to the questionable decisions of the Russian government, and whether or not this relationship would be abused to obtain classified information from the devices using Kaspersky for their security solution. This assumption...

The CIA’s deputy director plans to resign and will be replaced by White House lawyer and agency outsider Avril D. Haines, Director John O. Brennan said Wednesday. Haines, who will succeed career officer Michael Morell on Aug. 9, has served for three years as President Obama’s deputy counsel in charge of national security issues and as legal adviser to the National Security Council. Although she has never worked inside the intelligence agency, “she knows more about covert action than anyone in the U.S. government outside of the CIA,” Brennan said in an interview.

In a recently published book, The Ranger Way, Kris “Tanto” Paronto provides readers with extensive insight into what was going through his mind as he fought for his life and the lives of those around him on September 11th, 2012, and also breaks down those experiences into the lessons learned. Paronto’s résumé is very impressive. A former Army Ranger from 2nd Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment and a private security contractor he has been deployed throughout South America, Central America, the Middle East, and North Africa. Many might know him as a member of the CIA Annex Security Team that responded...

On Monday, Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on a House intelligence committee, delivered his opening statements at a hearing where he laid out the case for alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Schiff repeatedly raised questions about alleged collusion between Moscow and members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Here are four serious problems with Schiff’s charges, which include wild conspiracy theories and heavy reliance on a questionable source: 1 – Throughout his opening statement, Schiff repeatedly relied on information provided by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who was reportedly paid by Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans...

TEL AVIV – Mike Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, is generating headlines for claiming that alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election amounts to “the political equivalent of 9/11.”

Friday on “CBS This Morning,” while discussing the terror attack that resulted in 84 deaths and over 100 injuries in Nice, France, former CIA deputy director Mike Morell said, “I think it’s just a matter of time before we see attacks of this size here in the United States.” Morell said, “I think things are going to get worse before they get better. As we put more pressure on them in Iraq and Syria, they’ll have a greater incentive to conduct attacks, inspire attacks because they want to show they’re still relevant. And as we’re more successful in Iraq and...

Former CIA Acting Director Mike Morell says the reason why the Obama administration wouldn't bomb and destroy ISIS oil wells was out of concern about "environmental damage." Discussing President Barack Obama's thinking prior to the Nov. 13 ISIS attacks in Paris, Morell, who served as acting director twice while he was the agency's deputy director, tells interviewer Charlie Rose there's "now a sense of urgency that there wasn't before." ...

Among other discrepancies, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee allege Morell insisted the talking points were sent to the White House for informational purposes, and not for their input -- but emails, later released by the administration, showed otherwise. "We found that there was actual coordination which could influence then -- and did influence -- what CIA conveyed to the committees about what happened [in Benghazi]," Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told Fox News.

Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell said Monday on CBS This Morning there was “nothing routine” about July 4 terrorist attack warnings by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, adding that he would not be surprised if “we’re sitting here a week from today talking about an attack.” Federal authorities issued warnings across the United States of potential terroristic targeting of Independence Day celebrations

Hewitt: As a professional matter, do you believe that at least one or perhaps many foreign intelligence servers, services have everything that went to and from that server? Morell: So I think that foreign intelligence services, the good ones, the good ones, have everything on any unclassified network that the government uses, whether it's a private server or a public one. They're that good. Hewitt: So that's a yes? Morell: Yup. I did not expect such bluntness from so high ranking a former official, but this is exactly the same answer I have received off the record from four other...

Lawfare Blog: Following an American special forces raid on the compound of Islamic State operative Abu Sayyaf, U.S. interrogators, who are part of the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, have flown to Iraq in order to question Umm Sayyaf, the wife of Abu Sayyaf, who was taken during the operation. Umm Sayyaf was allegedly involved in the workings of the Islamic State and could possibly have played a role in “the enslavement of women in Iraq and Syria.” U.S. interrogators plan to talk to Umm Sayyaf about U.S. hostages held by the militant group. However, according to the Washington Post,...