SpyTalk

Welcome to SpyTalk, now entering its 15th year! Led by Jeff Stein, a talented team of experienced investigative journalists, writers, and experts is ready to give you an inside look at the national security landscape. Look out for our launch in mid-September. You might recognize Jeff from his years as the Spytalk columnist at Newsweek, as well as his previous roles at The Washington Post and Congressional Quarterly, where he was the founding editor of the notable CQ/Homeland Security. This time, Jeff has brought together a remarkable group of seasoned journalists, including Elaine Shannon, known as TIME magazine's “queen of drugs and thugs,” and Peter Eisner, a skilled investigative writer and former deputy foreign editor at The Post, among others.

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Trump in Fury Over Iran Intelligence Questioning

2 days ago | spytalk.co | Jonathan Broder

Assessments of the damage caused by the recent U.S. airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites remained muddled Wednesday amid the growing debate over the effectiveness of the attacks on Iran’s nuclear program. At a news conference in the Hague at the end of a NATO summit, President Trump and his top aides vigorously disputed a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analysis that concluded the attacks had set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months.
Where’s the Rest of Iran’s Uranium?

4 days ago | spytalk.co | Jonathan Broder

Even with President Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire in the 10-day war between Israel and Iran, U.S. and European officials remain deeply concerned over Iran’s large undeclared stockpile of enriched uranium. A few days before the U.S. attack on three major Iranian nuclear facilities, satellites photographed trucks at the Fordow enrichment plant loading up with Iran’s 408 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium.
Iran's Cyber Army: Missing in Action

1 week ago | spytalk.co | Jonathan Broder |Jeff Stein

Iran’s vaunted cyber war capability turns out to be not so vaunted afterall. It’s been the dog that didn’t—or hasn’t so far—barked in the war Israel launched against it last week. For years, intelligence assessments have portrayed Iranian cyber capabilities as fearsome.
US, Israel, Still Far Apart on Iran Nuclear Threat

2 weeks ago | spytalk.co | Jonathan Broder

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking late Thursday shortly after Israel began its attack on Iran, claimed that in recent months Tehran had taken unprecedented “steps to weaponize” its large stockpile of enriched uranium.
Trump, Iran, Brace for Israel Attack, Wider War

2 weeks ago | spytalk.co | Jonathan Broder

More than two decades after the United States invaded Iraq on the basis of phony evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, the growing prospect of another war, this time pitting the U.S., Israel, or both, against Iran over its nuclear program, hovers like a ghost over Washington’s calculations in the Middle East.
William F. Buckley, Jr., CIA Spy

2 weeks ago | spytalk.co | Michael Isikoff

IN THE FALL OF 1951, a new book scandalized one of the country’s most elite universities and made its brash young author, William F. Buckley, Jr., an instant celebrity.God and Man at Yale was Buckley’s audacious debut, a withering attack on his alma mater for supposedly indoctrinating its students with liberal nostrums taught by atheist professors who ridiculed Christianity. There were ferocious counter attacks from inside academia.
New in SpyWeek: Kyiv Shocker, Gabbard Mess, Kid to Run DHS Counterextremism

3 weeks ago | spytalk.co | Seth Hettena

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New in SpyWeek: Kyiv Shocker, Gabbard Mess, Kid to Run DHS Counterextremism

3 weeks ago | spytalk.co | Seth Hettena

LITTLE MOSSAD: CIA veterans were kvelling over the operation Ukrainian intelligence managed to pull off at multiple sites deep inside Russia that took out a sizable chunk of the Kremlin’s fleet of strategic nuclear bombers. “The Little Mossad is growing up fast,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA senior operations officer who served in counterterrorism roles in the Middle East, wrote on X.
Warner, Top Democrat on Intel Panel, Calls for Gabbard Resignation

3 weeks ago | spytalk.co | Michael Isikoff

Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a new interview that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard should resign and her office subjected to oversight hearings over the efforts by her and her chief of staff to alter intelligence reports about the supposed connection between the Venezuelan government and a criminal gang operating in the United States.
New in SpyWeek: More Hegseth Follies and China Spying Worries

4 weeks ago | spytalk.co | Seth Hettena

HEGSETH LEAKS, KEYSTONE COPS EDITION: The White House isn’t happy with a Pentagon leak investigation after an advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed an aide had been outed by a National Security Agency wiretap. Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Hegseth, was initially blamed for the leak of an allegedly Top Secret document to a reporter that outlined options for the U.S. military to retake the Panama Canal.