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Welcome to SpyTalk, now in its 15th year, where Jeff Stein leads an all-star team of veteran investigative reporters, writers and subject-matter experts who will take you behind the scenes of the national security state. Coming in mid-September.
You may remember Jeff as the Spytalk columnist for years at Newsweek, and before that, at The Washington Post and before that Congressional Quarterly (where he was also the founding editor of the influential CQ/Homeland Security). This time around, however, he’s added to his team such veteran journalists as Elaine Shannon, TIME magazine's “queen of drugs and thugs,” and Peter Eisner, a prolific investigative author and former deputy foreign editor at The Post. And more. Source
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| Country | United States of America |
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Recent Articles
Search ArticlesJay Clayton Flunked the Test
You had to wait for it. It didn’t come until nearly two hours into the all-but-scripted hearing on Jay Clayton’s nomination to be the new boss of U.S. intelligence. Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee did their parts. They threw the expected jabs at Clayton, starting with the ritualized question on who won the 2020 presidential election, a Punch-and-Judy exercise every time a Trump nominee or official appears before them.
Does US Intelligence Matter Anymore?
The latest dreary news about the hollowing out of U.S. intelligence under the Trump administration came yesterday via The Steady State, an organization of some 400 former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security.
SpyWeek: Trump Tries Again with Jay Clayton, Patel Ignites Graham Conspiracy Talk, FBI Probes Air Force One Leak
Room at the Top: Jay Clayton, Trump’s on, off and on again pick to run U.S. intelligence, was already bound to face tough questioning about his qualifications and views when he eventually appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing: Would he be a raw tool of President Trump’s retribution campaigns, like his Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, who immediately began cleaning house of career professionals on day one?
Israelis Offer New Details on Joint Regime-Change Strategy and Mossad-CIA plan for Kurdish Invasion
Happier Times: CIA Director John Ratcliffe meets with Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Mossad boss David Barnea in Israel in April 2025. Soon after Israel’s 12-day air war against Iran last June culminated in the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, the Mossad secretly began plotting its next war against the Islamic Republic — this one aimed at nothing less than regime change, according to several newly retired senior Israeli intelligence officials.
Left on a Jet Plane
I was vaccinated against Trump Derangement Syndrome long before he showed up on the Potomac. Nixon, Ford, the Bushes, Vietnam, Watergate, Iraq, Afghanistan—all had sanded off the edges of my rage over the years. Plus, of course, there were always criminal manservants—the H.R. Haldemans and Paul Manaforts, to name just two—that deserved equal disdain, maybe even deranged hatred.
A Good Washington Thriller for This 4th of July
Robert B. McCaw’s decades with an elite Washington, DC law firm lends “Traitors” an authoritative voice. (Author photo) The best spy novelists are deceptively crafty. They are able to step back from the chaotic noise of our daily headlines to remind us that, at least in fiction, honesty and goodwill can still outmaneuver the worst aspects of humanity. In his gripping new page-turner, Traitors, the veteran mystery writer Robert B. McCaw gives us exactly that kind of hero for this cynical age.
Death Comes for Cuba’s Master of Repression and Spies Original
Ramiro Valdés Menéndez in 2022. The powerful secret police and spy catcher was equally feared, reviled and respected by his opponents, including his CIA adversaries, over many decades (Granma.cu photo) He spent a lifetime quashing threats, but in the end he could not defeat the one that eventually catches up to all mortals, no matter how powerful: time. Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, a longtime CIA nemesis, spymaster and architect of internal repression, died in a Havana hospital last week, age 94.
Party Time at the ODNI?
Christina Norton (in purple with long blonde hair, back partially turned) out partying with pals in DC on Dec. 22, 2025. (Instagram) Christina A.
New in SpyWeek: Pulte Signals ODNI Elections Role, Gabbard's Guru Unmasked, Trump's Mexican Moles, Death of a CIA Rebel
Acting DNI Bill Pulte, heir to a home-building fortune, has not a scintilla of the “extensive national security expertise” the law requires of official presidential nominees for the position. His lone qualification seems to be an enthusiasm for investigating Trump’s opponents on spurious grounds.
Pulte Dismisses Top ODNI Experts on World’s Hot Spots
From the front lines at Liberty Crossing: The termination notices came early in the morning via email—from Human Resources. Then the new managers in the front office came by and, in a cool, “professional” manner, assured the cashiered staff that they weren’t being axed because they were suspected of being part of some “Deep State” plot to undermine the president.