The Value of Advice and Consent: Clapper Nomination
I’m going to have more to say about James Clapper’s nomination to be Director of National Intelligence. But for now I want to point out similarities between how the Administration’s treated that...
View ArticleWhite House Won’t Tell DNI It Should Be More Powerful
Now for your latest installment of DOD’s expanding intelligence authorities, DNI’s increasing irrelevance, and the White House’s efforts to make sure those trends continue. As you’ll recall, back in...
View ArticleWaPo Top Secret Story: Why Not Nominate God to Be Director of National...
I trust you will all read Dana Priest and William Arkin’s story on the unwieldiness of our Intelligence Industrial Complex. It is good, insofar as it focuses needed attention on a huge problem. But boy...
View ArticleIn First Act as DNI, James Clapper Adds to Redundancy Competitive Analysis
When James Clapper testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, he rejected one of the central criticisms in the WaPo’s Top Secret America series–that the redundancy in the Intelligence...
View ArticleJohn Brennan, Liar
Since Jo Becker co-wrote the Angler series in the WaPo with Barton Gellman, her long piece today with Scott Shane will be seen as the Obama version of that story: how he evades the law to pursue...
View ArticleDennis Blair and Drone Targeting
On February 3, 2010, in a public House Intelligence Committee hearing, Ranking House Intelligence member Pete Hoesktra asked then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair about the “framework”...
View ArticleJames Jones’ Targeted Killing Memo
In recent weeks, both Colleen McMahon and Ron Wyden have been hinting that there is more than one targeted killing memo (indeed, Wyden has been suggesting that for almost a year). Both also suggest the...
View ArticleTargeted Killing Timeline
A timeline! I’ve been working on this timeline for almost nine months, trying to pull together the known dates about strikes against Americans, the evidence supporting the strike against Anwar...
View ArticleHarold Koh and the First Office of Legal Counsel Memo
When I compared what appeared in Eric Holder’s March 2012 targeted killing speech and the targeted killing white paper, I discovered two sections that appear in Holder but not the white paper: a...
View ArticleThe Irony of Booz Vice Chair Mike McConnell’s Timing
Please support this kind of weedy journalism. I’m in the process of going really deep in the weeds on this Section 215 stuff, just adjusting my earlier timelines. Several of us have noted the curious...
View ArticleThe President Who Demanded Stanley McChrystal’s Resignation Is Not Sheltering...
As I have repeatedly noted, I think President Obama will protect John Brennan — and the CIA more generally — because of the mutual complicity built in between CIA and the White House over covert ops....
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