SpyTalk

Former top CIA ops official Dan Hoffman talks with Jeff about options on Putin.

Daniel Hoffman
https://twitter.com/danielhoffmanDC

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Top cyberwar expert and former Trump White House Homeland Security Advisor Thomas Bossert tells host Michel Isikoff that Israel’s deadly exploding pagers op was a “brilliant” tactic that Hezbollah's terrorists deserved.

Tom Bossert
https://twitter.com/tombossert

Trinity Cyber
https://www.trinitycyber.com/

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Former US Army “influence ops” specialist Paul Cobaugh talks with Jeff about combatting conspiracy mongering.

More from Paul Cobaugh
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-cobaugh-5253b335/
truthaboutthreats.com/

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There are friendly nations, but no friendly intelligence services, goes an old saw in the spy business. What that means in practicality is that we have close intelligence relationships with our allies, but in many cases, we also spy on each other, not entirely trusting what they’re telling us. In no place is this convoluted arrangement better exemplified than the security relationship between US and Israel, who have a long history of snooping on each other while closely working together on mutual targets, like Iran and its allied militias, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and now, Hamas in Gaza.

Here to discuss that with me today is my old friend and colleague Jonathan Broder. He’s been in and out of the Middle East for decades, in particular Israel, whose struggles and wars he began covering many decades ago as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press and Chicago Tribune based in Tel Aviv. He’s also been a foreign policy editor and writer for Congressional Quarterly and Newsweek, and today we’re blessed to have him as a contributing editor at SpyTalk, where he’s written a number of shrewd pieces since the Hamas invasion of Israel last Oct. 7.

Jonathan Broder
https://twitter.com/BroderJonathan

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Can a good spy become a good politician? I mean, not as an undercover agent—spy agencies are pretty good at that—but in an overt way, in, say, the messy US Congress.

Or, put another way, can the skills that a CIA officer employs in clandestine operations—gregariousness, empathy and, let’s face it, a learned talent for manipulating people, be put to good use in a place like a deeply polarized Congress?

This week I’m putting those questions to Abigail Spanberger, a former member of the CIA’s clandestine service, who in 2018 won a seat in Congress from Virginia as a Democrat, breaking, by the way, a nearly 40-year long Republican chokehold on a sprawling district in the near and far suburbs Washington, DC. Since then Spanberger has developed a strong reputation for working across the aisle with Republicans on bills that help constituents. And now she’s running for governor of Virginia with no primary opposition.

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