Spencer Ackerman
National security reporter for the Daily Beast. Writing a book, REIGN OF TERROR, for Viking, spring 2021. [email protected]
Last synced from Twitter 1066d ago
Trump Got a ‘Kick Out Of’ the Election Fears He’s Stoked. Inside the DOJ, There’s Some Panic.
Justice Department prosecutors expect Bill Barr to join election lawsuits benefitting Trump, who thinks it’s funny not to promise a peaceful transition of power.
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Spencer Ackerman
New from @swin24 & me.
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H.R. McMaster Tries to Wish Away His Old Boss Donald Trump
Don’t look to the former national security adviser’s new book for revelations about his time serving Trump. Look to it for its evasions—which explain that service to Trump so well.
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Spencer Ackerman
NEW: I got an early copy of HR McMaster’s book. It’s a masterpiece of evasion — not just about his service to Trump, but about how American foreign policy made a Trump figure inevitable.
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U.S. Intel Repeatedly Warned About Rudy’s ‘Russian Agent’ Pal
For a year and a half, U.S. intelligence warned that Andriy Derkach was suspected of election interference. Yet Derkach—and his wild beliefs—kept drawing more Trumpist adherents.
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Spencer Ackerman
NEW: Multiple times over the past year and a half, US intelligence warned that Andrii Derkach was among several foreigners involved in election interference. Treasury sanctioned him last week as a Russian “agent.”
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Cops Are Using Over $1 Billion in Post-9/11 Military Gear
From mine-resistant vehicles to robots to semi-automatic weapons, a new study documents the Pentagon hardware still in police custody during a generation-long war.
He Hunted Bin Laden for CIA. Now He Wants Americans Dead.
Michael Scheuer used to hunt Osama bin Laden, whom he now says he admires. Now his quarry is Donald Trump’s enemies, whom he equates with terrorists.
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Spencer Ackerman
NEW: The first chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden Unit is now urging a civil war — against the “terrorists” of Black Lives Matter and millions of other Americans. He represents this summer’s phenomenon of the war on terror being aimed at home.
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Trump’s Troop Withdrawal Is a ‘Disingenuous’ Election Year Ploy, Officials Say
Trump has told allies he wants to announce an Afghan troop withdrawal “before November.” And the Iraq pullback is “politically timed... to match Afghanistan,” officials say.
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Spencer Ackerman
New from me & @swin24: the Iraq drawdown numbers are likely to be election-year bullshit, our sources say. There have been thousands more in Iraq this year than the official “5200 troops” figure.
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“Allende Wins”
Washington D.C., September 4, 2020 – “Chile voted calmly to have a Marxist-Leninist state, the first nation in the world to make this choice freely and knowingly,” U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry dramatically reported to Washington in a cable titled...
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Spencer Ackerman
50 years ago today, Chile voted for Allende and socialism. Nixon, Kissinger, the CIA and Pinochet would not let that stand. The National Security Archive has memos from the US ambassador at the time
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Postal Chiefs Warn: Workers’ ‘Heroic’ Efforts Won’t Save the Vote
“Despite the heroic efforts ...the reality is, that’s going to be a difficult situation for that voter to have their vote counted,” one official said.
Video: I Got Blasted by the Pentagon's Pain Ray -- Twice
The military is developing a huge milimeter-wave cannon, able to burn someone's skin with a blast of energy and heat without killing him. One of our reporters got burned by it -- twice. And we filmed it.
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Spencer Ackerman
I’ve been shot by this. It feels like the part of your body it impacts has suddenly entered a furnace. google.com/amp/s/www.wire… twitter.com/shearm/status/…
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Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
Documents show company collaborated closely with NSA and FBI to help agencies intercept data
‘George Floyd All Over Again’: ICE Guard Drove Knee Into Detainee
A guard at an ICE detention center drove his knee into the upper back of a detainee, Carlos Rivas Monsano, eyewitnesses say. They haven’t seen the man in the two weeks since.
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Spencer Ackerman
A horrific story: Two migrants detained by ICE in Virginia say on July 13, guards dangerously knelt on another detainee’s upper back and punched him while his head was already bleeding. A third said the guard knelt on the man’s *head.*
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AG Barr Calls Black Lives Matter Protests in Portland ‘an Assault’ on U.S. Government in Testy Hearing
In highly anticipated testimony, the attorney general wouldn’t say he hadn’t discussed the federal crackdown in the context of Trump’s reelection.
Black Lives Matter Sues to Stop Trump’s Chicago Crackdown
A coalition of Chicago civil-rights groups is seeking a federal judge’s injunction to keep Chicago from becoming the next city besieged by state violence.
Trump ‘Surges’ Feds to Chicago Like It’s the New Iraq
Public defenders, attorneys and activists in Chicago are warning that the influx of federal officers are coming to hunt their neighbors, not protect them.
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Spencer Ackerman
NEW: Counterinsurgency comes home as the next “surge” is into American cities. Public defenders, attorneys and activists in Chicago are bracing for their neighbors to be hunted, not protected.
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Trump Admin Plots Crackdown by Feds in Cities Nationwide
Portland and Kansas City were just the beginning. But as federal law enforcement is preparing to ramp up, DHS veterans are urging it to step back from the brink.
ICE Dodged Orders to Free Detainees—and Triggered an Outbreak
Employees warned their bosses at the for-profit immigration jail not to accept detainee transfers pushed by ICE. The bosses went ahead anyway.
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Spencer Ackerman
NEW: the COVID outbreak at an ICE prison happened after ICE xferred sick migrants from 2 states where it faced legal efforts to free ppl. Now Farmville detainees tell me they’re waiting to die & ex-employees describe exploitation by the for-profit prison.
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How John Lewis Founded the Third American Republic
Without activists like Lewis and C. T. Vivian, America would remain a white man’s republic, not a nation for all its citizens.
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Spencer Ackerman
Read @AdamSerwer, who’s on one of his Twitter hiatuses, on the meaning of John Lewis, CT Vivian, and the other Founders of what might be considered the Third American Republic
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Saudi Arabia Wants Its Fugitive Spymaster Back
Officials say billions in a Saudi counterterrorism fund under the control of spy chief Saad al Jabri have gone missing. Jabri’s supporters say the money was used to fight terrorists and the system was approved by the former crown prince. Western...
‘It’s Spooky Right Now’: Inside the Creepy Federal Crackdown on Portland Protesters
When Customs and Border Protection joined the protest crackdown in D.C., they were made into U.S. Marshals. In Portland, they’re using new powers provided by Trump.
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Spencer Ackerman
NEW, with @winston_ross on the ground in Portland: inside the DHS crackdown on protesters, with a focus on how vastly their powers have expanded since last month in DC
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‘They Put Us in Here to Let Us Die’: ICE Prison Sees Outbreak of Coronavirus—and Guard Violence
Over two-thirds of migrants locked up at a private ICE facility tested positive for COVID-19. “You don’t treat humans like this. You don’t treat dogs like this,” one detainee said.
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Spencer Ackerman
NEW: There is a *massive* spike of both Coronavirus and guard violence inside a privately-run Virginia ICE prison. People locked inside are angry, fearful and in some cases resigned. “You don’t treat dogs like this. They don’t care if you die,” one told me
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