Tag: intelligence community

US intel contradicts Trump’s claims of fentanyl production in Venezuela: Report

US intelligence has assessed that little to no Fentanyl trafficked to the US is being produced in Venezuela, contradicting recent claims from US President Donald Trump to justify airstrikes on alleged drug boats, Drop Site News (DSN)reported on 24 October.

Trump claimed last month that boats targeted in US airstrikes in the Caribbean were carrying Fentanyl to the US.

“Every boat kills 25,000 on average — some people say more. You see these boats, they’re stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly Fentanyl and other drugs, too,” Trump said.

US strikes on vessels operating in international waters in the Caribbean Sea since September have killed at least 32 people.

However, a senior US official directly familiar with the matter stated that Fentanyl is not being produced in Venezuela and sent to the US.

“The official noted that many of the boats targeted for strikes by the Trump administration do not even have the requisite gasoline or motor capacity to reach US waters,” DSN reported.

The lack of intelligence linking Venezuela with fentanyl production is further evidence that the strikes are driven by an effort to topple the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump has used allegations of Venezuelan drug trafficking, including claims without evidence that Maduro is leading a drug cartel, as the justification for overthrowing the socialist government.

In a post on social media, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth equated the alleged threat of Venezuelan drug cartels to that of Al-Qaeda.

“Just as Al-Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,” Hegseth said, adding that “there will be no refuge or forgiveness – only justice.”

His comments come just a few weeks after the founder of Al-Qaeda in Syria, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, met with US officials in New York. Sharaa seized power in Damascus in December, declaring himself president, with US backing.

Two sources familiar with discussions at the White House told DSN that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the driving force behind the regime change effort.

Secretary Rubio has earmarked millions of dollars previously allocated for “pro-democracy” measures in Venezuela to prepare for a war.

The sources cited Rubio’s desire to access Venezuela’s vast oil resources as the reason for seeking regime change.

On Friday, the Pentagon confirmed it was deploying the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to the Caribbean Sea, adding to the thousands of troops deployed to the Venezuelan coast.

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US Intelligence Has Been Enabling Ukraine’s Destruction Of Russian Energy Sites

Fresh reporting in the Financial Times offers more confirmation that the Trump administration has been escalating the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, in hopes of forcing Moscow to the negotiating table.

The Sunday report makes clear that “The US has for months been helping Ukraine mount long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities, in what officials say is a coordinated effort to weaken Vladimir Putin’s economy and force him to the negotiating table.”

“American intelligence shared with Kyiv has enabled strikes on important Russian energy assets including oil refineries far beyond the frontline, according to multiple Ukrainian and US officials familiar with the campaign,” it adds.

One source described Ukraine’s drone program as the tool the US is using to weaken Russia’s economy and pressure Putin into ending the war on terms more favorable to Kiev.

Washington has sunk billions of dollars in expanding Ukraine’s drone capabilities, with the CIA reportedly supporting the initiative. Attacks on Russian oil and energy sites have become almost a nightly occurrence. In many cases Russian anti-air defense fail to intercept the small drones – or else only destroy some among larger swarms.

FT provides a timeline of when this ramped-up intel sharing began. The program reportedly expanded based on a July phone call between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump allegedly asked whether Ukraine could target Moscow if supplied with longer-range weapons.

The report relates this exchange as follows:

Trump signaled his backing for a strategy to “make them [Russians] feel the pain” and compel the Kremlin to negotiate, said the two people briefed on the call. The White House later said Trump was “merely asking a question, not encouraging further killing”.

After this, as if to demonstrate its existing capabilities to Washington, Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian energy sites sharply increased in August and September.

Interestingly, the FT notes that the Biden administration had avoided backing such strikes, but still authorized the supply of US Army ATACMS missiles, capable of reaching targets up to about 190 miles away, against Russian border areas.

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Jeffrey Epstein Worked to Coordinate Former Israeli Prime Minister’s State-Level Investment Meetings in Mongolia

Epstein planned Ehud Barak’s meeting with the Secretary of the National Security Council of Mongolia.

Jeffrey Epstein’s ability to pull strings at the highest echelons of global power is no longer just rumor—it’s confirmed by a cache of leaked emails from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. These documents expose Epstein—already notorious for his criminal life and intelligence connections—as a behind-the-scenes fixer, using his network and financial heft to help broker a security and technology deal between Israel and Mongolia.

Epstein’s Network Reaches Ulaanbaatar

Epstein’s personal ties to Israeli leadership, including Barak and Ehud Olmert, were already well-known, as were his donations to Israeli causes like Friends of the IDF. Yet, these emails, released by the pro-Palestinian hacking group Handala(possibly tied to Iran), and published via Distributed Denial of Secrets, prove for the first time that Epstein facilitated a state-level deal leading to a formal bilateral security agreement.

The leak includes unpublished photos and documents spanning 2013–2016 with virtually daily correspondence between Barak and Epstein, showing Epstein arranging Barak’s meetings with Mongolia’s top brass.

Orchestrating State Security

In April 2013, only a month after stepping down as Israel’s Defense Minister, Barak landed in Mongolia to meet President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj and key security officials. The trip’s real architect? Not Barak, but Epstein—coordinating logistics, introductions, and the broader strategy behind the scenes. The emails make it clear: Epstein was instrumental in setting up Barak’s meeting with Enkhtuvshin Tsagaandari, Secretary of Mongolia’s National Security Council. At this pivotal exchange, the CEO of Israel Weapon Industries delivered a gift—a Jericho pistol engraved for the occasion—cementing ties and paving the way for deeper cooperation.

Barak’s Official Offer: Spying Tech for Mongolia

The Israeli push didn’t stop at gifts or diplomacy. Ehud Barak submitted an official Israeli memorandum to Terje Rød-Larsen, president of the International Peace Institute, outlining a proposal for advanced spying technology, electronic surveillance, and intelligence support for Mongolia. Tellingly, the letterhead bore Israel’s official emblem above Barak’s name—a detail legally requiring Israeli Minister of the Interior’s approval.

Barak’s memo also promised support in modern agriculture, water management, and medical diagnostics, while Barak himself cut deals with Israeli biotech and mining firms on the side—showcasing how political and private profits were deeply entwined.

Epstein, the Mongolia Advisory Board, and Global Power Brokering

The “advisory team” concept in Mongolia wasn’t organic; it was proposed by Terje Rød-Larsen (president of IPI and prominent Oslo Accords mediator), another figure deep within Epstein and Barak’s network. Barak, Rød-Larsen, and even Lawrence Summers (former Harvard president and U.S. Treasury Secretary) were tapped by Epstein to serve on the “Mongolia Presidential Advisory Board” with each reportedly earning up to $100,000 for their efforts.

Their inaugural meeting—at Davos, naturally—included the Mongolian President, National Security Advisor, and Rød-Larsen, with Epstein joining as “financier”[meeting notes PDF]. Advice flowed on everything from creating a Mongolian sovereign wealth fund to importing Israeli “zero-click” cyber-surveillance capability.

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Yet Again, Deep State Attacks DNI Tulsi Gabbard

It is difficult not to notice the strategy of how certain Trump administration officials are targeted.

Any cabinet member that looks inward to reveal the status of corrupt activity within the information silo itself becomes a target. Cabinet officials who focus externally, meaning the majority of their effort looks outside government, are seemingly left alone.

HHS Secretary RFK Jr and Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, are examples of those receiving the worst ideological targeting from operations within HHS and the Intelligence Community respectively.

Conversely, CIA Director John Ratcliffe faces almost no scrutiny or targeting by the Intelligence Community as the silo operators frame narratives almost exclusively against DNI Gabbard.

The latest effort surfaces as embeds within Main Justice and the CIA frame a storyline that Tulsi Gabbard’s action in removing the security clearances of 37 current and former officials, has now resulted in those same officials being incapable of testifying against former CIA Director John Brennan (and others).

The premise of the narrative is ridiculous.  If we are to accept some current or former IC officials are willing to testify against Brennan (or others), regardless of whether Tulsi Gabbard has revoked their security clearances, their retroactive knowledge is still pertinent.  They are completely free to give statements and testimony based on their prior conduct.

What the leakers to Axios and the New York Times are trying to establish, is groundwork for the removal of Tulsi Gabbard. This stops her objective of investigating internal corruption.  I suspect most of the people trying desperately to undermine Gabbard are from within the CIA Directorate of Analysis, or at least in alignment with the directorate’s agenda.

The narrative’s author, Marc Caputo, claims AG Pam Bondi is hampered in her effort to criminally indict John Brennan because the witnesses Main Justice would use have lost their security clearances.  Again, the game of leveraging internecine friendships in/around the office of Trump becomes an overlay.

It is certainly true that AG Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have refused to look internally; and it is also true that DNI Tulsi Gabbard has spent much of her focus time looking internally.  Bondi and Patel continue the preferred game of institutional blame-casting in Main Justice. Meanwhile, Gabbard is busy focused on cleaning up her IC house.

The Fourth Branch embeds do not fear the approach of Bondi/Patel, but the Fourth Branch embeds are petrified by the approach of Tulsi Gabbard.  That reality underpins the baseline of opposition against the Director of National Intelligence.

As the dynamic unfolds, CIA Director John Ratcliffe is certainly not corrupt; however, nor is he brave.  Director Ratcliffe is willing to let Director Gabbard clean up his house, and then he takes credit for the reform.  As the weeks unfold into months, this is becoming increasingly obvious.

Mark Zaid is the current anti-Trump Lawfare operative likely seeding the narrative to Axios/New York Times.

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Telegram’s Durov claims French intelligence tried to blackmail him over Moldovan election

Writing on X on Sunday, Durov said the approach came about a year ago, while he was under judicial supervision in France following his arrest at a Paris airport. He claimed that intelligence services contacted him through an intermediary and asked Telegram to remove a number of Moldovan channels before a presidential vote.

According to St Petersburg native Durov, Telegram did delete some flagged channels that clearly violated its own policies. But he said the intermediary later relayed a more troubling message: French intelligence had offered to “say good things” to the judge in charge of his case in exchange for wider cooperation.

“This was unacceptable on several levels,” Durov wrote, adding that if the agency did contact the judge, it would amount to interference in the judicial process — and if it didn’t, it meant exploiting his legal jeopardy to influence political developments abroad.

Durov said that shortly afterward, Telegram received a second list of “problematic” Moldovan channels. Unlike the first batch, he insisted, nearly all of these accounts were legitimate and fully compliant with Telegram’s rules.

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NASA is no longer a space agency. Its new official status is pretty shocking. Here’s what happened

A new order by the Trump administration issued late last month states that NASA will operate as a national intelligence and security agency. According to it, the space agency will now have a different set of primary functions, which includes “intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.” The revelation was made by NASA Watch founder Keith Cowing, as the issue didn’t exactly make headlines at the time. Keith was once a scientist at the space agency, and now closely watches everything that happens there. So, does this mean that NASA will go forward and develop spycraft instead of spacecraft? According to reports, the order is more about labour concerns rather than about the work NASA does. A report from Futurism states that the order adds “NASA to the Federal Service Labour-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS), excluding it from collective bargaining representation.”

This sparked discontent among NASA employees, who staged a protest outside NASA’s Washington, DC, headquarters earlier this week. The change in the status of the space agency came as the president eliminated the union rights for thousands of federal employees. Several lawsuits had been filed to stop the order. As this news made headlines, the thing about NASA becoming a spy agency was sidelined. However, that is expected to have labour implications for the people working at the agency. Government Executive quoted the vice president of the Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association, Monica Gorman, as telling those gathered at the protest, “A huge part of the reason that I have that independence, and that my colleagues do, is that as a union-represented worker I know that I am protected from unfair retaliation.”

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SHOCK TESTIMONY: U.S. Air Force Veteran Reveals He Witnessed a Silent 100-Foot TRIANGLULAR UFO at Langley AFB — Shot Into the Sky in Seconds

Congress heard jaw-dropping testimony today during the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets’ hearing titled “Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection.”

Task Force Chairwoman Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) blasted the federal government and intelligence community for deliberately keeping Americans in the dark about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).

Luna stressed the danger of stonewalling the public, warning that UAP secrecy directly undermines U.S. national security and erodes trust in our Republic.

U.S. Air Force Veteran Dylan Borland, a former geospatial intelligence specialist for the U.S. Air Force and senior defense analyst for BAE Systems and Intrepid Solutions, described a chilling 2012 encounter while stationed at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

At approximately 1:30 a.m., Borland reported witnessing a massive, 100-foot equilateral triangular craft silently emerge near the NASA hangar on base.

After reporting the incident, Borland revealed that his professional career was deliberately obstructed after his experience.

He says government agencies manipulated his security clearance, falsified records, and blacklisted him to prevent him from continuing to work in the intelligence community.

He went further, disclosing that he had been exposed to classified details of the UAP Legacy Crash Retrieval Program, a program he alleges is hiding recovered craft and technologies of unknown origin from both Congress and the American public.

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Israeli intel campaign used US comedian in effort to flip Iranian scientists

A mysterious online campaign linked to Israel’s intelligence services attempted to recruit Iranians to overthrow their government. Some appear to have been placed by an Atlanta-based comedian and influencer.

Desi Banks, an Atlanta comedian and content creator, is known for his light-hearted comic sketches and currently has more than nine million followers on the social media platform Instagram. There is no public record of Banks commenting on sensitive Middle East issues, and each of his ad campaigns on Meta’s platforms relates to his work as an entertainer.

The comedian, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment, seems to have served a surprising role in an apparent Israeli intelligence operation over the last year to recruit members of Iran’s security and intelligence services – including those working in nuclear centers – into aiding the overthrow of their government. Would-be defectors were offered both money and the protection of their families.

Google advertising transparency records show that a production company owned by Banks, Desi Banks Productions LLC, served a set of four Persian-language recruitment ads across at least 19 countries, including the U.S., Sweden, France, Germany, India, and numerous others across the Middle East and Africa.

The four ad campaigns included both overt and deceptive redirections into recruitment pages purporting to be run by Israel’s foreign intelligence services, the Mossad. Others advertise lucrative, tax-free jobs at apparently fictitious international consulting firms.

The most aggressive campaign redirected users to the Mossad’s official, Persian-language recruitment form, advising viewers to activate their virtual private network (VPN) before clicking. According to Google’s ad disclosure portal, this campaign was the sole instance of a Google ad directly linking to the Mossad’s official website, mossad.gov.il.

Germany-based family members of Iranian nuclear engineers appear to be a major focus of the effort, as Germany is the only country identified by the Google ad transparency portal as being targeted with all four ad campaigns.

“You are just one click away from making history,” read the Mossad recruitment ad, captioned atop a darkened cartoon of a man walking down a multi-lane road. “Call Now. The future belongs to you.”

This direct call to espionage was targeted to viewers in at least 18 countries, including the United States.

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The CIA, Mossad, and Epstein: Unraveling the Intelligence Ties of The Maxwell Family

With speculation mounting that Trump could pardon her, MintPress profiles the family of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. From her media baron father, who acted as a high-level spy for Israel, her sister, working to push Tel Aviv’s interests in Silicon Valley, her brothers, who founded a dubious but highly influential anti-Islamic extremism think tank, and nephews in influential roles at the State Department and White House, the Maxwell clan have wide-ranging ties to U.S. and Israeli state power. This is their story.

Releasing Ghislaine, Burying the Epstein Files

Speculation is growing that Ghislaine Maxwell could soon be freed. Despite campaigning on the promise to release the Epstein Files, there are increasing signs that the Trump administration is considering pardoning the world’s most notorious convicted sex trafficker.

Last month, Trump (who contemplated the idea in his first term in office) repeatedly refused to rule out a pardon, stating to journalists that “I’m allowed to do it.” Just days later, Maxwell was transferred across states to a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas—a highly unusual practice. Neither women convicted of sex crimes nor those with more than 10 years remaining on their sentences are generally permitted to be transferred to such facilities. The move sparked equal measures of speculation and outrage.

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Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Spy Industry Connections

After his first arrest for sex crimes, Jeffrey Epstein tried to get into a new line of work: surveillance. In 2015, he partnered with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to invest in a security tech startup called Reporty Homeland Security, now known as Carbyne. Leaked emails show that Epstein was using Barak to seek out opportunities in the surveillance industry and build connections with powerful figures around the globe, including American businessman Peter Thiel, the former director of Israeli signals intelligence, and two people in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s circle.

After he was first caught sexually exploiting teenage girls, Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution in 2008; he served a little over a year in detention. Meanwhile, he invested his wealth in bizarre projects, including a ranch to breed women with his DNA and “efforts to identify a mysterious particle that might trigger the feeling that someone is watching you,” according to The New York Times.

The leaked emails show that Epstein was also interested in more mundane means of spying on and manipulating people, which overlapped with the technologies governments often pursue. This interest crossed borders.

Barak’s email inbox was quietly posted by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a website widely considered to be a successor to WikiLeaks, on a file-sharing platform for verified journalists and researchers in May 2025. The contents came from Handala, a hacker group named for a Palestinian cartoon character that has been leaking files taken from senior Israeli officials for several months.

Although the emails were posted without technical metadata or cryptographic signatures that would allow their authenticity to be verified, they include dozens of images, videos, voice recordings, and scanned documents from Barak and his friends and family that have never been published elsewhere. And they include information that was not publicly known at the time of the email leaks, including a reference to Epstein’s birthday book.

The emails below, which have not been published elsewhere, paint a picture of Epstein as a man very eager to be at the nexus between private money and public surveillance. While they were hammering out the Reporty investment, Epstein invited Barak to come to a meeting with Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and the surveillance contractor Palantir, in May 2014. Although Barak couldn’t make that meeting, Epstein insisted that Barak “spend real time with peter thiel [sic]” and offered to set up a dinner the following month.

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