Tag: secrecy

CIA Head Took ‘Secret’ Trip to Beijing

CIA Director William Burns held “clandestine” meetings with Chinese intel agencies during an unannounced trip to Beijing last month, US officials told the Financial Times, suggesting the visit was intended to “stabilize” deteriorating relations with the People’s Republic.

Burns had no formal diplomatic engagements in China and “only met intelligence officials” for talks in May, FT reported on Friday, citing five unnamed sources familiar with the trip. Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, CBS and other agencies later confirmed the report, but offered few additional details.

“Last month, director Burns traveled to Beijing where he met with Chinese counterparts and emphasized the importance of maintaining open lines of communications in intelligence channels,” a US official said in a statement to FT and several other outlets.

The sources did not say what was discussed during the meetings, which mark the Joe Biden administration’s highest-level visit to China since outgoing State Department deputy Wendy Sherman traveled to Tianjin in 2021.

A career diplomat, Burns is seen as a “trusted interlocutor” by the PRC, according to former senior White House official Paul Haenle, who worked on China policy during his time in government. “They would welcome the opportunity to engage him quietly behind the scenes. They will see a quiet, discreet engagement with Burns as a perfect opportunity,” he told the Financial Times.

Burns’ trip took place around the same time that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with one of China’s top foreign policy officials, ex-Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The White House did not announce those talks beforehand, but later said the two sides had “candid, substantive, and constructive discussions on key issues,” including Taiwan. 

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Secretive Bilderberg Gathering Of Global Elites Kicks Off: See Who’s Attending & What They’re Discussing

The 69th Bilderberg Meeting, a secretive conclave of global power brokers, has kicked off in Lisbon, Portugal, with issues on the agenda including transnational threats, artificial intelligence, and America’s leadership in world affairs.

This year’s meeting, the latest in a series that began in 1954, continues to blur the lines between open diplomacy and clandestine elitism as political leaders brush shoulders with industry bigwigs, media barons, and finance tycoons.

“It’s a really high-octane list, leaning heavily into the Russia/Ukraine conflict and the future of NATO,” journalist Charlie Skelton, who’s in Lisbon to cover this year’s event, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

As usual, the details of their discussions remain obscured by the “Chatham House Rule,” a protocol that gives participants the discretion to use the information gleaned from the talks but forbids the identification of speakers or participants, ensuring anonymity.

“Thanks to the private nature of the Meeting, the participants take part as individuals rather than in any official capacity, and hence are not bound by the conventions of their office or by pre-agreed positions,” a Bilderberg Meetings press release reads.

Among the major topics slated for discussion are artificial intelligence, the banking system, energy transition, and industrial policy and trade.

Other high-priority issues include the geopolitical landscapes of Europe, China, India, Russia, and Ukraine, along with NATO and America’s global leadership.

The topic of U.S. leadership, which last appeared on the Bilderberg agenda in 2018, comes as China and Russia have ramped up their efforts to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar as the world’s pre-eminent reserve currency.

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Release of Transgender Nashville Shooter’s Manifesto Delayed Yet Again, Supposedly Because of ‘Pending Litigation’

The manifesto of the transgender Nashville shooter Audrey Hale has been delayed yet again.

At one point, the Nashville police claimed that the FBI was holding up the release. The journalist Glenn Greenwald hired law firms to get the document released and was blocked.

Just last week, the Nashville Police claimed they were going to release it. Now what?

The excuse this time is that there is ‘pending litigation’ around the document.

Read: Dr. Peter McCullough On “The Holy Grail Of COVID-19 Vaccine Detoxification”

Does anyone believe any of this?

OutKick reports:

POLICE ANNOUNCE MANIFESTO OF NASHVILLE TRANSGENDER MASS KILLER WON’T BE RELEASED SOON

The release of transgender mass killer Audrey Hale’s manifesto has been put on hold.

The Nashville Police Department had previously told Fox News Digital last week the manifesto was being revealed and would be released. People are interested to see what drove Hale to murder six innocent people, including three children, at the Covenant School in late March.

Now, it appears that the process has hit a roadblock.

Metro Nashville PD announced Wednesday afternoon that “Due to pending litigation filed this week, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department has been advised by counsel to hold in abeyance the release of records related to the shooting at The Covenant School pending orders or direction of the court.”

The update is in response to a lawsuit filed by former Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond and the Tennessee Firearms Association against the Nashville city government and the police to release the manifesto, according to TimeFreePress.com.

As of early May, the public still doesn’t have any idea what is in the manifesto.

This doesn’t even make sense.

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What Are They Hiding About the Nashville Shooter’s Manifesto? Glenn Greenwald (and Others) Want To Know

A short time back, our editor-in-chief said that there had been a school shooting in Nashville, and asked if anyone would cover it. I wrote the first story about it for PJ Media. It wasn’t the first time I had ever written about human tragedy or cruelty. And I have hated doing it every time. I always feel like Judas collecting his 30 pieces of silver from someone else’s suffering.

Be that as it may, the Nashville shooting mattered, and not just because it gave the Left more talking points about the evils of gun ownership. After all, if we are being honest, the Left can come up with talking points about the evils of gun ownership over a skeeball game. What the Nashville murders revealed was the level of disconnect affecting the transgender movement. As did the fact that everyone from the White House on down seemed to be less concerned with the victims and their families than with the transgender community. Also conspicuously absent from the debate has been the incendiary language that that community has used.

Pertinent information seems to be in the manifesto written by the woman who committed the crimes. And that manifesto has been declared off-limits, so it would appear that no one is getting access to it. That includes journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has even enlisted the aid of lawyers to get the manifesto from the Nashville Police Department. But the firms have decided to back out of the effort.

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What We Know About Jack Teixeira, Accused Of Involvement In Classified Documents Leak

A 21-year-old has been taken into custody for allegedly being involved in the leak of secret U.S. military documents.

Jack Teixeira of the Massachusetts Air National Guard was arrested on April 13 at a home in southern Massachusetts, about 18 miles east of Providence, Rhode Island.

Here’s what we know about Teixeira.

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Great Quotations on Secrets

What is it about a secret — something you’re not supposed to know — that makes it so irresistible?  It’s none of your business, so of course you want to know all about it. You think its discovery will be enormously entertaining or shocking or both. 

On the other hand, you certainly don’t want your own secrets known, and at night you worry about all the new snooping technology. 

The funny thing is, there is a reverse situation: To paraphrase Voltaire — the secret to being a bore is to tell all!  When you’re on the phone, don’t leave out a single detail, no matter how dull or irrelevant! 

I have fantasies of a CIA interrogator listening in to my gabby old Aunt Kate — who was very thorough when telling all — and being cured of ever wanting to listen in again. This is your secret weapon in the war on privacy.

Bore them to death!

But if you’d rather not, then here is something to talk about that will charm all your listeners whoever they are.  

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Oops! Deleted Tweet By Israel’s Former PM Disclosed Nuke Arsenal

In a major faux pax in US-Israeli relations, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged the existence of the country’s nuclear weapon arsenal via Twitter — then deleted the tweet, presumably after realizing he’d violated the long-standing US-Israeli practice of pretending that arsenal doesn’t exist. 

Barak’s Tuesday tweet addressed growing worries about the growing presence of ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious factions in Israel’s government. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party, for example, openly aspire to turn Israel into a theocracy. 

Barak wrote: 

“In conversations between Israelis and Western diplomatic officials, there are deep concerns raised of the possibility that if the coup in Israel succeeds, a messianic dictatorship — that possesses nuclear weapons and fanatically wishes for a confrontation with Islam centered on the Temple Mount — will be established in the heart of the Middle East.”  

Thanks in part to a former nuclear technician’s 1986 revelations, Israel is widely known to have a nuclear arsenal, with one estimate sizing it at 90 warheads. However, it’s never joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It’s just one of only five countries in the world that haven’t done so, along with North Korea, India, Pakistan and South Sudan. 

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