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Tag: Classified information

  • Republicans reject complaint about Tulsi Gabbard as Democrats question time it took to see it

    The Republican leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees have rejected a top-secret complaint from an anonymous government insider alleging that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard withheld classified information for political reasons.The responses this week from Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Rick Crawford mean the complaint is unlikely to proceed further, though Democratic lawmakers who also have seen the document said they continue to question why it took Gabbard’s office eight months to refer the complaint to Congress as required by law.Gabbard’s office has rejected any allegations of wrongdoing as well as criticism of the timeframe for the referral, saying the complaint included so many classified details that it necessitated an extensive legal and security review. Select lawmakers were able to view the complaint this week.Cotton wrote Thursday on X that he agreed with an earlier inspector general’s conclusion that the complaint did not appear to be credible. He said he believes the complaint was prompted by political opposition to Gabbard and the Trump administration.“To be frank, it seems like just another effort by the president’s critics in and out of government to undermine policies that they don’t like,” wrote the Arkansas Republican, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.When asked about the complaint, Cotton’s office referred to his social media post.Crawford, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, also of Arkansas, said he believes the complaint was an attempt to smear Gabbard’s reputation.Democrats are pushing for explanations about why it took Gabbard’s office months to refer the complaint to the required members of Congress. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the law requires such a report to be sent within 21 days.“The law is clear,” Warner said Thursday at the Capitol. “I think it was an effort to try to bury this whistleblower complaint.”Warner said he also still has questions about the details of the complaint, noting that it was heavily redacted.The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, said in a written statement that he will keep looking into the matter.In a memo sent to lawmakers this week, the intelligence community’s inspector general said the complaint also accused Gabbard’s office of general counsel of failing to report a potential crime to the Department of Justice. The memo, which contains redactions, does not offer further details of either allegation.Last June, then-inspector general Tamara Johnson found that the claim Gabbard distributed classified information along political lines did not appear to be credible, according to the current watchdog, Christopher Fox. Johnson was “unable to assess the apparent credibility” of the accusation about the general counsel’s office, Fox wrote in the memo.Fox said he would have deemed the complaint non-urgent, unlike the previous inspector general, but respected the decision of his predecessor and therefore sent it to lawmakers.Copies of the top-secret complaint were hand-delivered this week to the “Gang of Eight” — a group comprised of the House and Senate leaders from both parties as well as the four top lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees.Andrew Bakaj, the attorney for the person who made the complaint, has said that while he cannot discuss the details of the report or the identity of its author, there is no justification for keeping it from Congress since last spring.A former CIA officer and now the chief legal counsel at Whistleblower Aid, Bakaj said he has heard significant redactions were made to the complaint before it was given to members of Congress.“Given the extensive redactions we understand exist, even in the version provided to the Gang of Eight, it seems unlikely anyone could reasonably and in a non-partisan manner reach the conclusions issued by Sen. Cotton,” Bakaj wrote in a statement to The Associated Press.Gabbard coordinates the work of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies. She has recently drawn attention for another matter — appearing on site last week when the FBI served a search warrant on election offices in Georgia that are central to Trump’s disproven claims about fraud in the 2020 election.

    WASHINGTON —

    The Republican leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees have rejected a top-secret complaint from an anonymous government insider alleging that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard withheld classified information for political reasons.

    The responses this week from Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Rick Crawford mean the complaint is unlikely to proceed further, though Democratic lawmakers who also have seen the document said they continue to question why it took Gabbard’s office eight months to refer the complaint to Congress as required by law.

    Gabbard’s office has rejected any allegations of wrongdoing as well as criticism of the timeframe for the referral, saying the complaint included so many classified details that it necessitated an extensive legal and security review. Select lawmakers were able to view the complaint this week.

    Cotton wrote Thursday on X that he agreed with an earlier inspector general’s conclusion that the complaint did not appear to be credible. He said he believes the complaint was prompted by political opposition to Gabbard and the Trump administration.

    “To be frank, it seems like just another effort by the president’s critics in and out of government to undermine policies that they don’t like,” wrote the Arkansas Republican, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.

    When asked about the complaint, Cotton’s office referred to his social media post.

    Crawford, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, also of Arkansas, said he believes the complaint was an attempt to smear Gabbard’s reputation.

    Democrats are pushing for explanations about why it took Gabbard’s office months to refer the complaint to the required members of Congress. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the law requires such a report to be sent within 21 days.

    “The law is clear,” Warner said Thursday at the Capitol. “I think it was an effort to try to bury this whistleblower complaint.”

    Warner said he also still has questions about the details of the complaint, noting that it was heavily redacted.

    The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, said in a written statement that he will keep looking into the matter.

    In a memo sent to lawmakers this week, the intelligence community’s inspector general said the complaint also accused Gabbard’s office of general counsel of failing to report a potential crime to the Department of Justice. The memo, which contains redactions, does not offer further details of either allegation.

    Last June, then-inspector general Tamara Johnson found that the claim Gabbard distributed classified information along political lines did not appear to be credible, according to the current watchdog, Christopher Fox. Johnson was “unable to assess the apparent credibility” of the accusation about the general counsel’s office, Fox wrote in the memo.

    Fox said he would have deemed the complaint non-urgent, unlike the previous inspector general, but respected the decision of his predecessor and therefore sent it to lawmakers.

    Copies of the top-secret complaint were hand-delivered this week to the “Gang of Eight” — a group comprised of the House and Senate leaders from both parties as well as the four top lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

    Andrew Bakaj, the attorney for the person who made the complaint, has said that while he cannot discuss the details of the report or the identity of its author, there is no justification for keeping it from Congress since last spring.

    A former CIA officer and now the chief legal counsel at Whistleblower Aid, Bakaj said he has heard significant redactions were made to the complaint before it was given to members of Congress.

    “Given the extensive redactions we understand exist, even in the version provided to the Gang of Eight, it seems unlikely anyone could reasonably and in a non-partisan manner reach the conclusions issued by Sen. Cotton,” Bakaj wrote in a statement to The Associated Press.

    Gabbard coordinates the work of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies. She has recently drawn attention for another matter — appearing on site last week when the FBI served a search warrant on election offices in Georgia that are central to Trump’s disproven claims about fraud in the 2020 election.

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  • Trump administration revokes security clearances of 37 current and former government officials

    The Trump administration moved Tuesday to revoke the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials in the latest act of retribution targeting public servants in the federal government’s intelligence community.Related video from January above: White House press secretary comments on Gen. Milley’s security clearance being pulledA memo posted by Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, accuses the targeted officials of having engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance partisan goals, as well as a failure to safeguard classified information and a “failure to adhere to professional analytic tradecraft standards.”The action, coming months after an even broader clearance suspension on his first day in office, is part of a broader campaign by President Donald Trump’s administration to scrutinize the judgments of intelligence officials he personally disagrees with. Critics of his approach have said it risks chilling dissenting voices within the government.”These are unlawful and unconstitutional decisions that deviate from well-settled, decades-old laws and policies that sought to protect against just this type of action,” Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer whose own clearance was revoked by the Trump administration, said in a statement.Many of the officials who were singled out left the government years ago. Some worked on matters that have long provoked Trump’s ire, including the intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on Trump’s behalf, or have openly criticized him.Gabbard, in the last month, has declassified a series of years-old documents meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the assessment on Russian election interference.

    WASHINGTON —

    The Trump administration moved Tuesday to revoke the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials in the latest act of retribution targeting public servants in the federal government’s intelligence community.

    Related video from January above: White House press secretary comments on Gen. Milley’s security clearance being pulled

    A memo posted by Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, accuses the targeted officials of having engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance partisan goals, as well as a failure to safeguard classified information and a “failure to adhere to professional analytic tradecraft standards.”

    The action, coming months after an even broader clearance suspension on his first day in office, is part of a broader campaign by President Donald Trump’s administration to scrutinize the judgments of intelligence officials he personally disagrees with. Critics of his approach have said it risks chilling dissenting voices within the government.

    “These are unlawful and unconstitutional decisions that deviate from well-settled, decades-old laws and policies that sought to protect against just this type of action,” Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer whose own clearance was revoked by the Trump administration, said in a statement.

    Many of the officials who were singled out left the government years ago. Some worked on matters that have long provoked Trump’s ire, including the intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on Trump’s behalf, or have openly criticized him.

    Gabbard, in the last month, has declassified a series of years-old documents meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the assessment on Russian election interference.

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  • Biden forms task force to avoid mishandling of classified documents during presidential transitions

    Biden forms task force to avoid mishandling of classified documents during presidential transitions

    President Joe Biden on Monday launched a task force aimed at addressing the “systemic” problem of mishandling classified information during presidential transitions, days after a Justice Department special counsel’s sharply critical report said he had done just that.The Presidential Records Transition Task Force will study past transitions to determine best practices for safeguarding classified information from an outgoing administration, the White House said. It will also assess the need for changes to existing policies and procedures to prevent the removal of sensitive information that by law should be kept with the National Archives and Records Administration. The report from special counsel Robert Hur listed dozens of sensitive documents found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former Washington office. The papers were marked as classified or later assessed to contain classified information. The majority of the documents, Hur’s report stated, appeared to have been mistakenly removed from government offices, though he also detailed some items that Biden appeared to knowingly retain. He concluded that criminal charges were not warranted in the matter.”I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” Biden said last week after Hur’s report was released. He added that “things that appeared in my garage, things that came out of my home, things that were moved were moved not by me but my staff.”Biden aides first discovered some of the documents as they cleared out the offices of the Penn-Biden Center in Washington in 2022, and more were discovered during subsequent searches by Biden’s lawyers and the FBI. Biden promptly reported the discoveries to federal authorities, which prompted the special counsel probe. That’s unlike former President Donald Trump, who is accused of resisting efforts to return classified government records that he moved to his Florida residence before leaving office in 2021 and of obstructing the investigation into them in a separate special counsel investigation.In even the best of circumstances, presidential transitions can be chaotic as records of the outgoing administration are transferred to the National Archives and thousands of political appointees leave their jobs to make way for the incoming administration. Officials of multiple administrations have said there is a systemic problem with mishandling of classified information by senior government officials, particularly around transitions, magnified by rampant over-classification across the government. Former Vice President Mike Pence turned over some classified documents discovered at his home last year. And former officials from all levels of government discover they are in possession of classified material and turn them over to the authorities at least several times a year.”Previous presidential transitions, across administrations stretching back decades, have fallen short in ensuring that classified presidential records are properly archived at NARA,” the White House said. “In light of the many instances that have come to light in recent years revealing the extent of this systemic issue, President Biden is taking action to strengthen how administrations safeguard classified documents during presidential transitions and to help address this longstanding problem going forward.”Hur’s report said many of the documents recovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, in parts of Biden’s Delaware home and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake.”Biden could not have been prosecuted as a sitting president, but Hur’s report states that he would not recommend charges against Biden regardless. But investigators did find evidence of willful retention and disclosure of a subset of records found in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware house, including in a garage, office and basement den. The files pertain to a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama administration that Biden had vigorously opposed. He kept records that documented his position, including a classified letter to Obama during the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday.Biden also retained his personal notebooks after leaving the vice presidency, some of which investigators found contained classified information, though other officials have kept similar documents as their personal property. The task force will be headed by Katy Kale, deputy administrator of the General Services Administration, who was assistant to the president for management and administration during the Obama administration, the post that oversees the human resources and document retention functions at the White House.The panel will include representatives from the White House, General Services Administration, NARA, the National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.The task force is to produce its recommendations ahead of the next presidential transition. It is set to operate independently from the White House Transition Coordinating Council, which is chaired by the White House chief of staff and required by law to be stood up six months before any presidential election.

    WASHINGTON —

    President Joe Biden on Monday launched a task force aimed at addressing the “systemic” problem of mishandling classified information during presidential transitions, days after a Justice Department special counsel’s sharply critical report said he had done just that.

    The Presidential Records Transition Task Force will study past transitions to determine best practices for safeguarding classified information from an outgoing administration, the White House said. It will also assess the need for changes to existing policies and procedures to prevent the removal of sensitive information that by law should be kept with the National Archives and Records Administration.

    The report from special counsel Robert Hur listed dozens of sensitive documents found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former Washington office. The papers were marked as classified or later assessed to contain classified information.

    The majority of the documents, Hur’s report stated, appeared to have been mistakenly removed from government offices, though he also detailed some items that Biden appeared to knowingly retain. He concluded that criminal charges were not warranted in the matter.

    “I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” Biden said last week after Hur’s report was released. He added that “things that appeared in my garage, things that came out of my home, things that were moved were moved not by me but my staff.”

    Biden aides first discovered some of the documents as they cleared out the offices of the Penn-Biden Center in Washington in 2022, and more were discovered during subsequent searches by Biden’s lawyers and the FBI.

    Biden promptly reported the discoveries to federal authorities, which prompted the special counsel probe. That’s unlike former President Donald Trump, who is accused of resisting efforts to return classified government records that he moved to his Florida residence before leaving office in 2021 and of obstructing the investigation into them in a separate special counsel investigation.

    In even the best of circumstances, presidential transitions can be chaotic as records of the outgoing administration are transferred to the National Archives and thousands of political appointees leave their jobs to make way for the incoming administration. Officials of multiple administrations have said there is a systemic problem with mishandling of classified information by senior government officials, particularly around transitions, magnified by rampant over-classification across the government.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence turned over some classified documents discovered at his home last year. And former officials from all levels of government discover they are in possession of classified material and turn them over to the authorities at least several times a year.

    “Previous presidential transitions, across administrations stretching back decades, have fallen short in ensuring that classified presidential records are properly archived at NARA,” the White House said. “In light of the many instances that have come to light in recent years revealing the extent of this systemic issue, President Biden is taking action to strengthen how administrations safeguard classified documents during presidential transitions and to help address this longstanding problem going forward.”

    Hur’s report said many of the documents recovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, in parts of Biden’s Delaware home and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake.”

    Biden could not have been prosecuted as a sitting president, but Hur’s report states that he would not recommend charges against Biden regardless. But investigators did find evidence of willful retention and disclosure of a subset of records found in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware house, including in a garage, office and basement den. The files pertain to a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama administration that Biden had vigorously opposed. He kept records that documented his position, including a classified letter to Obama during the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday.

    Biden also retained his personal notebooks after leaving the vice presidency, some of which investigators found contained classified information, though other officials have kept similar documents as their personal property.

    The task force will be headed by Katy Kale, deputy administrator of the General Services Administration, who was assistant to the president for management and administration during the Obama administration, the post that oversees the human resources and document retention functions at the White House.

    The panel will include representatives from the White House, General Services Administration, NARA, the National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

    The task force is to produce its recommendations ahead of the next presidential transition. It is set to operate independently from the White House Transition Coordinating Council, which is chaired by the White House chief of staff and required by law to be stood up six months before any presidential election.



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  • Trump’s Claims of Political Bias Shot Down by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Office

    Trump’s Claims of Political Bias Shot Down by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Office


    Special Counsel Jack Smith pushed back on Friday against former President Donald Trump’s persistent claims that his federal prosecution over alleged mishandling of classified documents is politically motivated. 

    Smith’s latest 67-page filing comes in response to a request Trump’s lawyers filed in mid-January, seeking to have lawyers in Smith’s office turn over additional evidence—including documents from intelligence agencies, the National Archives, and the Biden White House—that could be used by the former president’s legal team. In that filing, Trump’s lawyers indicated that they planned to use the evidence to argue that the investigation that led to his indictment was “politically motivated and biased.”

    In their argument to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon overseeing the documents case, Smith’s lawyers accused Trump of attempting to “cast a cloud of suspicion over responsible actions by government officials diligently doing their jobs” by “putting a nefarious gloss on innocuous events.”

    Prosecutors in Smith’s office, seeking to “set the record straight,” claimed that Trump and his lawyers are painting an “inaccurate and distorted picture” of the case, based on “speculative, unsupported, and false theories of political bias and animus.” Trump and his co-defendants’ legal problems, they concluded, “are solely of their own making.”

    Looking to “clear the air” on the issue, the prosecutors offered a fine-grained account of the series of events leading to Trump’s indictment, arguing that the investigation into Trump’s holding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence was an appropriate response to an unprecedented situation. 

    When the National Archives and Records Administration asked the Justice Department in February 2022 to investigate Trump’s possession of classified records, it came after “months of efforts” to retrieve the documents, according to the Special Counsel’s Office.  The former president’s lawyers have previously called the DOJ referral a “sham.”

    “Put simply,” the prosecutors concluded, “the Government here confronted an extraordinary situation: a former President engaging in calculated and persistent obstruction of the collection of Presidential records, which, as a matter of law, belong to the United States for the benefit of history and posterity, and, as a matter of fact, here included a trove of highly classified documents containing some of the nation’s most sensitive information. The law required that those documents be collected.”

    In addition to rebutting claims from Trump’s lawyers, Smith’s filing also contains some new information about the case that prosecutors have uncovered in the course of their investigation. Of the approximately 48,000 guests who visited Mar-a-Lago when classified documents were being held at the compound, only 2,200 had their names checked, while just 2,900 passed through magnetometers.

    The response also excoriated the specifics of Trump’s lawyers’ request for documents, which Smith argued should be wholly rejected. Some of the demands, prosecutors wrote, were so unclear “that it is difficult to decipher what they seek,” while others “reflect pure conjecture detached from the facts surrounding this prosecution.” Still, more of the requests, they argued, were for documents that had already been turned over to the defense.

    DOJ reported that the government has already handed over 1.28 million pages of unclassified discovery documents to Trump’s lawyers, exceeding “in both scope and timing that to which the defendants are entitled under law.”



    Jack McCordick

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  • Senator Tim Scott Avoids Question on Trump Pardon, Vows to “Clean Out” DOJ

    Senator Tim Scott Avoids Question on Trump Pardon, Vows to “Clean Out” DOJ

    South Carolina senator and 2024 presidential hopeful Tim Scott avoided saying whether he would pardon Donald Trump if the former president is convicted on federal charges relating to his mishandling of classified documents. “I’m not going to deal with the hypotheticals, but I will say that every American is innocent until proven guilty,” Scott told Fox’s Shannon Bream on Sunday.

    Instead, Scott trained his ire on the Department of Justice, which he accused of trying to “hunt Republicans.” “We have to clean out the political appointments in the Department of Justice to restore competence and integrity in the DOJ today,” Scott said.

    Scott’s comments Sunday make him the latest Republican presidential candidate to weigh in on the question of a potential Trump pardon, an issue fast becoming a dividing line among 2024 Republican hopefuls.

    Among the current field, Trump’s most vociferous defender is biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy. The longshot candidate vowed to “pardon Trump promptly on January 20, 2025 and to restore the rule of law in our country.” Last week, Ramaswamy appeared outside the Florida federal courthouse on the day of Trump’s arraignment and said he’d sent a letter to each 2024 Republican candidate, asking them to publicly commit to pardoning Trump “or else publicly explain why you will not.” Fellow entrepreneur and presidential longshot, Perry Johnson, has also committed to pardoning the former president, and conservative radio host Larry Elder has also said he’d be “very likely” as well.

    The prospect of pardoning the twice-indicted former president received a more lukewarm response from Nikki Haley. Last week, the former South Carolina governor said she was “inclined in favor of a pardon,” though she called the discussion “really premature” and made sure to call the former president “incredibly reckless with our national security.”

    So far, two candidates—former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson— have come out against making a pardon pledge. “I can’t imagine if he gets a fair trial that I would pardon him,” Christie said on Wednesday, adding, “To accept a pardon, you have to admit your guilt.” Asked on Tuesday about fellow candidates floating Trump pardons, Hutchinson called the pledges “wrong,” “unjustified,” and “bad precedent.” “I want our candidates to show more courage and to speak out about this and provide leadership,” he said.

    Other candidates, like Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former vice president Mike Pence, have taken Scott’s route, avoiding directly addressing a possible Trump pardon while vowing to attack the DOJ if elected. Using similar language to Scott, DeSantis has pledged to perform a “house cleaning on day one,” while Pence has promised to “clean house at the highest levels” of the DOJ.

    Jack McCordick

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  • The Lab Leak Will Haunt Us Forever

    The Lab Leak Will Haunt Us Forever

    The lab-leak theory lives! Or better put: It never dies. In response to new but unspecified intelligence, the U.S. Department of Energy has changed its assessment of COVID-19’s origins: The agency, which had previously been undecided on the matter, now rates a laboratory mishap ahead of a natural spillover event as the suspected starting point. That conclusion, first reported over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal, matches up with findings from the FBI, and also a Senate Minority report out last fall that called the pandemic, “more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.”

    Then again, the new assessment does not match up with findings from elsewhere in the federal government. In mid-2021, when President Biden asked the U.S. intelligence community for a 90-day review of the pandemic’s origins, the response came back divided: Four agencies, plus the National Intelligence Council, guessed that COVID started (as nearly all pandemics do) with a natural exposure to an infected animal; three agencies couldn’t decide on an answer; and one blamed a laboratory accident. DOE’s revision, revealed this week, means that a single undecided vote has flipped into the lab-leak camp. If you’re keeping count—and, really, what else can one do?—the matter still appears to be decided in favor of a zoonotic origin, by an updated score of 5 to 2. The lab-leak theory remains the outlier position.

    Are we done? No, we aren’t done. None of these assessments carries much conviction: Only one, from the FBI, was made with “moderate” confidence; the rest are rated “low,” as in, hmm we’re not so sure. This lack of confidence—as compared with the overbearing certainty of the scientists and journalists who rejected the possibility of a lab leak in 2020—will now be fodder for what could be months of Congressional hearings, as House Republicans pursue evidence of a possible “cover-up.” But for all the Sturm und Drang that’s sure to come, the fundamental state of knowledge on COVID’s origins remains more or less unchanged from where it was a year ago. The story of a market origin matches up with recent history and an array of well-established facts. But the lab-leak theory also fits in certain ways, and—at least for now—it cannot be ruled out. Putting all of this another way: ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

    That’s not to say that it’s a toss-up. All of the agencies agree, for instance, that SARS-CoV-2 was not devised on purpose, as a weapon. And several bits of evidence have come to light since Biden ordered his review—most notably, a careful plot of early cases from Wuhan, China, that stamps the city’s Huanan market complex as the outbreak’s epicenter. Many scientists with relevant knowledge believe that COVID started in that market—but their certainty can waver. In that sense, the consensus on COVID’s origins feels somewhat different from the one on humans’ role in global warming, though the two have been pointedly compared. Climate experts almost all agree, and they also feel quite sure of their position.

    The central ambiguity, such as it is, of COVID’s origin remains intact and perched atop a pair of improbable-seeming coincidences: One concerns the Huanan market, and the other has to do with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Chinese researchers have specialized in the study of bat coronaviruses. If COVID really started in the lab, one position holds, then it would have to be a pretty amazing coincidence that so many of the earliest infections happened to emerge in and around a venue for the sale of live, wild animals … which happens to be the exact sort of place where the first SARS-coronavirus pandemic may have started 20 years ago. But also: If COVID really started in a live-animal market, then it would have to be a similarly amazing coincidence that the market in question happened to be across the river from the laboratory of the world’s leading bat-coronavirus researcher … who happened to be running experiments that could, in theory, make coronaviruses more dangerous.

    Read: The lab-leak theory meets its perfect match

    One might argue over which of these coincidences is really more surprising; indeed, that’s been the major substance of this debate since 2020, and the source of endless rancor. In theory, further studies and investigations would help resolve some of this uncertainty—but these may never end up happening. A formal inquiry into the pandemic’s origin, set up by the World Health Organization, had intended to revisit its claim from early 2021 that a laboratory source was “extremely unlikely.” Now that project has been shelved in the face of Chinese opposition, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology has long since stopped responding to requests for information from its U.S.-based research partners and the NIH, according to an inspector general’s report from the Department of Health and Human Services.

    In the meantime, the smattering of facts that have been introduced into the lab-leak debates over the past two years, have been, at times, maddeningly opaque—like the unnamed, “new intelligence” that swayed the Department of Energy. (For the record, The New York Times reports that each of the agencies investigating the pandemic’s origin had access to this same intelligence; only DOE changed its assessment to favor the lab-leak explanation as a result.) We’re only told that certain fresh and classified information has changed the minds of some (but only some) unnamed analysts who now believe (with limited assurance) that a laboratory origin is most likely. Well, great, I guess that settles it.

    Read: Bird flu leaves the world with an existential choice

    When more specific information does crop up, it tends to vary in the telling over time; or else it’s promptly pulverized by its partisan opponents. The Journal’s reporting, for instance, mentions a finding by U.S. intelligence that three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill in November 2019, in what could have been the initial cluster of infection. But how much is really known about those sickened scientists? The specifics vary with the source. In one telling, a researcher’s wife was sickened, too, and died from the infection. Another adds the seemingly important fact that the researchers were “connected with gain-of-function research on coronaviruses.” But the unnamed current and former U.S. officials who pass along this sort of information can’t even seem to settle on its credibility.

    Or consider the reporting, published last October by ProPublica and Vanity Fair, on a flurry of Chinese Community Party communications from the fall of 2019. These were interpreted by Senate researcher Toy Reid to mean that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had undergone a major biosafety crisis that November—just when the COVID outbreak would have been emerging. Critics ridiculed the story, calling it a “train wreck” premised on a bad translation. In response ProPublica asked three more translators to verify Reid’s reading, and claimed they “all agreed that his version was a plausible way to represent the passage,” and that the wording was ambiguous.

    Maybe this is just what happens when you’re trapped inside an information vacuum: Any scrap of data that happens to float by will push you off in new directions.

    Daniel Engber

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  • Report: Trump Had Even More Classified Documents Stashed in a Storage Facility Next to “Swords and Wrestling Belts”

    Report: Trump Had Even More Classified Documents Stashed in a Storage Facility Next to “Swords and Wrestling Belts”

    Back in October, The New York Times reported that—despite the government showing up to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in January 2022 to retrieve 15 boxes of documents that were not his to take from White House; Trump subsequently trying to get one of his lawyers to falsely tell the government that all requested materials have been turned over; the government issuing a grand jury subpoena for the remainder of them in May; a Trump attorney signing a statement in June saying they had all been returned; and the FBI searching Mar-a-Lago in August and finding more than 100 additional classified documents—the Department of Justice believed that the ex-president was still in possession of government records that were not his to keep. And, as it turns out, that hunch was right!

    According to The Washington Post, lawyers for the 45th president—and current 2024 candidate—uncovered “at least two items marked classified after an outside team hired by Trump searched a storage unit in West Palm Beach, Fla., used by the former president,” according to sources familiar with the matter. A person who spoke to the outlet said that, in addition to the classified documents, the storage unit contained boxes of “suits and swords and wrestling belts and all sorts of things.” According to Trump advisers, nothing in the unit had been catalogued, as had been the case with the classified Mar-a-Lago documents, some of which reportedly contained information about a foreign country’s nuclear capabilities. As the Post notes, “the ultimate significance of the classified material in the storage unit is not immediately clear, but its presence there indicates Mar-a-Lago was not the only place where Trump kept classified material” and “provides further evidence that Trump and his team did not fully comply with a May grand jury subpoena that sought all documents marked classified still in possession of the post-presidential office.”

    Team Trump, of course, continues to insist that the ex-president has totally not spent months giving the federal government the runaround and has been as honest as a person can be. “President Trump and his counsel continue to be cooperative and transparent,” spokesman Steven Cheung told the Post, despite the fact that this is quite obviously not the case. (Cheung is also accusing the Department of Justice of waging an “unprecedented” and “unwarranted attack” against Trump and his family.) Additional searches were reportedly performed at Trump Tower in New York, Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, NJ, and in a storage closet at Mar-a-Lago.

    In October, The New York Times reported that Walt Nauta, a valet for Trump, had been captured on camera moving boxes out of a Mar-a-Lago storage room “both before and after the Justice Department issued a subpoena in May demanding the return of all classified documents.” Nauta is said to have been interviewed by the DOJ on “several occasions.” Naturally, Trump’s Save America PAC is footing the valet’s legal bills, and those of at least one other key witness.

    Bess Levin

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  • Ex-NSA worker accused of selling secrets ordered detained

    Ex-NSA worker accused of selling secrets ordered detained

    DENVER — A former National Security Agency employee from Colorado accused of trying to sell classified information to Russia will remain behind bars while he is prosecuted, a magistrate judge ruled Tuesday.

    Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 30, is facing a possible life sentence for allegedly giving the information to an undercover FBI agent whom prosecutors say he believed was a person working for the Russian Federation. He pleaded not guilty through his lawyer during a hearing in Denver federal court before a hearing to determine if he should be released from jail.

    Dalke was arrested Sept. 28 after authorities say he arrived at Denver’s downtown train station with a laptop and used a secure connection set up by investigators to transfer some classified documents.

    Magistrate Judge S. Kato Crews said Tuesday the stiff penalty Dalke could face makes him a flight risk along with the sympathies he has allegedly expressed for Russia. Crews also said he was not sure that Dalke, who is accused of sharing the documents after promising not to disclose information he obtained while working at the NSA, would honor any conditions he could impose that would allow Dalke to live with his wife and grandmother in Colorado Springs while the case proceeds. He was also concerned about authentic-looking but counterfeit badges for government agencies, including the NSA, allegedly found during a search of Dalke’s home.

    Dalke’s lawyers had proposed that his wife, who was in court for the hearing, could supervise the Army veteran and report any violations of his bond. However, Crews was concerned whether she would be able to do that, describing Dalke as her “caretaker.”

    One of Dalke’s federal public defenders, David Kraut, said Dalke supported the household with Veterans Administration benefits and had been “supportive” of his wife in difficulties in her life. He said Dalke would not want to put her at risk by not complying with bond conditions. However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia K. Martinez said he already had by taking her with him when he went to scout out a public location to transmit the documents.

    Public defender, Kraut, downplayed Dalke’s access to classified information since he only worked at the NSA for less than a month this summer.

    Shortly after he left the agency, citing a family illness, and signed the non-disclosure agreement, he allegedly began talking with the undercover agent using encrypted email.

    Martinez argued that the government does not know whether Dalke obtained more information from the NSA that is stored somewhere else or possibly memorized. She said he has the motivation to sell more secrets if he were to be released.

    “He knows how to make money. Sell secrets to Russia,” said Martinez, who alleged Dalke took the job at the NSA with the intent of selling secrets.

    The information Dalke is accused of providing includes a threat assessment of the military offensive capabilities of a foreign country which is not named. It also includes a description of sensitive U.S. defense capabilities, a portion of which relates to that same foreign country, according to his indictment.

    The Army veteran allegedly told the undercover agent that he had $237,000 in debts and that he had decided to work with Russia because his heritage “ties back to your country.”

    Before Dalke transfered the classified documents, he first sent a thank you letter, which opened and closed in Russian, in which he said he looked “forward to our friendship and shared benefit,” according to court filings.

    Dalke worked for the NSA, the U.S. intelligence agency that collects and analyzes signals from foreign and domestic sources for the purpose of intelligence and counterintelligence, as an information systems security designer. After he left and allegedly provided documents with the undercover agent, prosecutors say he re-applied to work there.

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