It’s time to admit the extent of Europe’s problem with Islamic radicalism. This isn’t mere terrorism any longer, this is guerrilla war.
It has happened again. Jihadists have struck in the heart of Europe, spreading terror while murdering dozens and maiming hundreds of innocents. Yesterday’s coordinated attacks on Brussels have woken Europeans, yet again, to the threat that exists in their midst—a grave danger politicians seem to have no idea how to handle.
The bombings at Zaventem airport and the Brussels metro at current count killed 31 and injured 270—over 300 casualties in all. Belgium is not accustomed to such a bloodbath. Its army contingent in Afghanistan suffered only 15 casualties, with just one killed, during that U.S.-led war. It’s been over 60 years since Belgians died violently in any numbers. Their battalion serving in Korea lost 101 killed and 478 wounded in action between 1950 and 1953. This is a distant memory today.
Belgium is a small country. Relative to population, this would be equivalent to 900 dead Americans and a staggering 7,800 wounded. To say nothing of the symbolism of yesterday’s attack on the metro near Maelbeek station in downtown Brussels, right next to the offices of the European Union. Striking at the very heart of the European project, revealing its vulnerability to even a handful of ardent madmen, sends a powerful message that nobody can miss.
Read the rest at the New York Observer …
The FBI has been investigating Clinton for months—but an even more secretive Federal agency has its own important beef with her
For a year now, Hillary Clinton’s misuse of email during her tenure as Secretary of State has hung like a dark cloud over her presidential campaign. As I told you months ago, EmailGate isn’t going away, despite the best efforts of Team Clinton to make it disappear. Instead, the scandal has gotten worse, with never-ending revelations of apparent misconduct by Ms. Clinton and her staff. At this point, EmailGate may be the only thing standing between Hillary and the White House this November.
Specifically, the Federal Bureau of Investigation examination of EmailGate, pursuant to provisions of the Espionage Act, poses a major threat to Ms. Clinton’s presidential aspirations. However, even if the FBI recommends prosecution of her or members of her inner circle for mishandling of classified information—which is something the politically unconnected routinely do face prosecution for—it’s by no means certain that the Department of Justice will follow the FBI’s lead.
What DoJ decides to do with EmailGate is ultimately a question of politics as much as justice. Ms. Clinton’s recent statement on her potential prosecution, “it’s not going to happen,” then refusing to address the question at all in a recent debate, led to speculation about a backroom deal with the White House to shield Hillary from prosecution as long as Mr. Obama is in the Oval Office. After mid-January, however, all bets would be off. In that case, winning the White House herself could be an urgent matter of avoiding prosecution for Ms. Clinton.
Read the rest at the New York Observer …
A former member of Putin’s inner circle has died violently and mysteriously in our nation’s capital.
The story has all the makings of a sleek Hollywood spy thriller. A defector from the Kremlin, a man close to the top echelons of power in Russia. A man who knew too much. And who lived the global jet-set lifestyle. Fear, international intrigue and rumors of stolen fortunes end in a fashionable hotel—with a brutal death.
For years, Mikhail Lesin had it all. He went into the mass entertainment business as the Soviet Union went into terminal decline and, unlike most Russians, he profited from the Communist collapse. In the years after the fall of the USSR in 1991, Mr. Lesin built a media and advertising empire that made him a wealthy and powerful man. By the end of that decade he entered politics, as the wealthy often do, not just in Russia.
Mr. Lesin’s star took off with the arrival of Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in 1999. He entered the halls of power alongside the former KGB man, serving as his media minister from 1999 until 2004. Mr. Lesin oversaw the consolidation of most of Russia’s media under Kremlin control. To his detractors, this amounted to the slow strangulation of the independent media that appeared in the Soviet wake.
Nicknamed “the Bulldozer” for his forceful ways, Mr. Lesin brought Russia’s media to heel and kept it on-message with what Mr. Putin wanted. As Russia became an increasingly authoritarian country after 1999, media control was a vital part of the formula to keep Russians happy and politically quiet. Most members of the media were willing to be bought off by Mr. Lesin, while hold-outs who valued press freedom were dealt with harshly. The lucky ones, intimidated, fled into exile while less the fortunate became martyrs—most infamously the muckraking reporter Anna Politovskaya, a harsh regime critic who was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building on Mr. Putin’s birthday.
Read the rest at the New York Observer …
As the big story has developed over the last year regarding Hillary’s problems with her email and her “private” server of bathroom infamy when she was Secretary of State, I’ve been out front on this case, breaking a lot of exclusive stories and providing my unique insights based on my own time in the intelligence business.
For the sake of convenience, particularly for readers who are seeking one-stop-shopping on EmailGate, just as I’ve done with my extensive work on the Edward Snowden debacle, below you’ll find my work on this case — op-eds, extended analysis, blog posts, even a couple extended media interviews on all things EmailGate. Enjoy!
Since Hillary’s strange travails with IT and mishandling official secrets appear to be far from over, this is a living document: I’ll add new links as they appear.
Hillary Has an NSA Problem (18 Mar 2016)
NYT Report Debunks Severity of EmailGate With Classic Clintonian Wordsmithing (04 Mar 2016)
National Security Disasters and the Latest Clinton Email Dump (06 Feb 2016)
Hillary Clinton Put Spies’ Lives at Risk (01 Feb 2016)
Why Hillary’s EmailGate Matters (28 Jan 2016)
Hillary’s EmailGate Goes Nuclear (09 Jan 2016)
Hillary’s Email Troubles Are Far From Over (19 Oct 2015)
Spies Don’t Buy Hillary’s Email Excuses (10 Sep 2015)
Hillary’s Sources, Methods, and Lies (09 Sep 2015)
What Russian Intelligence Knows About Hillary Clinton (01 Sep 2015)
Hillary’s EmailGate: Understanding Security Classification (16 Sep 2015)
Will Hillary’s Emails Burn the White House? (03 Sep 2015)
Hillary’s Mounting EmailGate Troubles (26 Aug 2016)
EmailGate Gets Worse for Hillary Clinton (24 Aug 2015)
The Spy Satellite Secrets in Hillary’s Emails (12 Aug 2015)
The other day I was on the Buck Sexton Show to discuss myriad hot-button national security issues, including Hillary’s EmailGate, the Syrian mess, Apple and the FBI, and the positions of the GOP presidential candidates on defense and security matters.
It’s a fun interview, including my take-down of Senator Cruz, so if you missed it and have fifteen minutes to spare, enjoy here!
Hillary may dodge consequences, but she will never escape the implications of her misconduct.
For a year now, the scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton’s misuse of email when she was secretary of state has dogged her presidential campaign. As I’ve explained in this column, contrary to her denials, Ms. Clinton’s use of a personal, unclassified server for government business raises serious questions for our national security—and for her fitness to be our next commander-in-chief.
Things got worse for Ms. Clinton this week regarding EmailGate, just as she got significantly closer to clinching her party’s nomination for the presidency by triumphing on Super Tuesday. That big political win was marred by the news that Brian Pagliano, Ms. Clinton’s former contract IT staffer, has reached a deal with the Department of Justice for immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony. Since Mr. Pagliano set up her private email server of bathroom infamy at Ms. Clinton’s Chappaqua, N.Y., home in 2009 and is presumably privy to many details of how she circumvented U.S. laws and norms regarding proper use of email and IT systems, his cooperation with DoJ cannot be considered anything but bad news for the Clinton campaign.
By now, including a dump just last week, the State Department has released 30,068 emails—per court order—that passed through Ms. Clinton’s personal email between 2009 and 2013, when she was the boss at Foggy Bottom. Of those “unclassified” documents, 2,115 (about 14 percent) have been judged to be classified with about 22 at the Top Secret level, 65 at the Secret Level, and the remaining 2,200-plus, the vast majority, at the Confidential level, the lowest classification in the U.S. Government.
Read the rest at the New York Observer …
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former NSA counterintelligence officer John Schindler to discuss his experiences in the Balkans, and his views on the current intelligence war against Russia. Houghton and Schindler also dive into Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks, and the unending battle against violent extremism.
You can listen in right here ….
