Zach Dorfman
@zachsdorfman.bsky.social
National Security Reporter. Features in Politico, Rolling Stone, Wired, Foreign Policy. Working on a book on the history of deep cover for Penguin-Random House.
It’s always Berlin 1989 somewhere. Email: thebrushpass1@protonmail.com
It’s always Berlin 1989 somewhere. Email: thebrushpass1@protonmail.com
A uniquely grotesque marriage of lawfare and the telegraphed robbery of state coffers to pad the pockets of the wealthy nomenklatura. An apt metaphor for this entire low era.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...
Spending Bill Would Pave Way for Senators to Sue Over Phone Searches
www.nytimes.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:58 AM
A uniquely grotesque marriage of lawfare and the telegraphed robbery of state coffers to pad the pockets of the wealthy nomenklatura. An apt metaphor for this entire low era.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
always excited to see the face @activemeasures.bsky.social is gonna make at me on stage to tell me that he’s “not mad, just disappointed”
Excited to have Michael E. van Landingham as a speaker this year! He specializes in political analysis of Russian leadership and their intelligence services.
His talk with Alex Orleans, is titled "'Oil into the Fire:' An Inside Look at SVR Cyberespionage".
www.cyberwarcon.com
His talk with Alex Orleans, is titled "'Oil into the Fire:' An Inside Look at SVR Cyberespionage".
www.cyberwarcon.com
November 10, 2025 at 10:29 PM
always excited to see the face @activemeasures.bsky.social is gonna make at me on stage to tell me that he’s “not mad, just disappointed”
Anything Star Wars-related that isn’t Andor is for children, which is why it’s funny when adults debate about it
November 10, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Anything Star Wars-related that isn’t Andor is for children, which is why it’s funny when adults debate about it
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
I love Sherman Kent's description in the book of OSS R&A chief and later CIA officer Walter Langer. "When he got into a subject matter, God help it; he ripped its clothes off irrespective of difficulty."
November 8, 2025 at 9:29 PM
I love Sherman Kent's description in the book of OSS R&A chief and later CIA officer Walter Langer. "When he got into a subject matter, God help it; he ripped its clothes off irrespective of difficulty."
Pelosi began sitting on House Intel in the 90s, eventually as ranking D. Then she spent over 2 decades in leadership—and thus a member of Gang of 8, privy to most sensitive covert action/intel programs. Arguable that no one in the USG has had access to ultra-sensitive intel for as long as she did.
November 6, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Pelosi began sitting on House Intel in the 90s, eventually as ranking D. Then she spent over 2 decades in leadership—and thus a member of Gang of 8, privy to most sensitive covert action/intel programs. Arguable that no one in the USG has had access to ultra-sensitive intel for as long as she did.
Yet another data point for why US intelligence does not trust its German counterparts. Also why we actively seek penetrations of their services.
Senior German officials have accused the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party of deliberately abusing parliamentary powers to collect and likely pass secret information about the country's military capabilities and the state of critical infrastructure to Russia.
Source: Der Spiegel
Source: Der Spiegel
November 6, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Yet another data point for why US intelligence does not trust its German counterparts. Also why we actively seek penetrations of their services.
Kahanism is, by the self-description of its adherents and as a matter of fact, a neofascist ideology. Affinity groups cannot be antifascist at home and in bed with fascists abroad. You have to make a choice, and it looks like some already have.
November 6, 2025 at 12:48 AM
Kahanism is, by the self-description of its adherents and as a matter of fact, a neofascist ideology. Affinity groups cannot be antifascist at home and in bed with fascists abroad. You have to make a choice, and it looks like some already have.
Thinking a lot today about this great @noahshachtman.bsky.social expose of the ADL from a few months back.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...
Inside the Crisis at the Anti-Defamation League
The group used to believe the rights of Jews were inextricable from the rights of everyone else. Its war against anti-Zionism has changed everything.
nymag.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Thinking a lot today about this great @noahshachtman.bsky.social expose of the ADL from a few months back.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...
Ok, this is a great joke
this is the most successful a CIA officer has been at toppling a government in years.
November 5, 2025 at 1:15 AM
Ok, this is a great joke
Though he was never president, the American presidency today is Dick Cheney's presidency; our national epistemology of threat and fear is Dick Cheney's; the modern Middle East bears his irrevocable imprint. Not hyperbolic to say he was the most consequential political figure in 21st century America.
November 4, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Though he was never president, the American presidency today is Dick Cheney's presidency; our national epistemology of threat and fear is Dick Cheney's; the modern Middle East bears his irrevocable imprint. Not hyperbolic to say he was the most consequential political figure in 21st century America.
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
Friendly reminder that Trump asserted that he had declassified all the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Time to fulfill his promise and post those docs with the SAPs on the ODNI website.
"the documents were so restricted that top Justice Department security officials reacted with surprise to the code names: They had never heard of them before. Some involved special access programs that required the president or a cabinet member to grant approval to view."
November 4, 2025 at 4:17 AM
Friendly reminder that Trump asserted that he had declassified all the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Time to fulfill his promise and post those docs with the SAPs on the ODNI website.
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
Obama saluted a Marine with a coffee cup in his hand and that was on the news for like two weeks.
November 3, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Obama saluted a Marine with a coffee cup in his hand and that was on the news for like two weeks.
I realize we’re in a post-truth environment, but: I cannot understand how the fact that the platform run by Changpeng Zhao—the crypto billionaire recently pardoned by Trump—was serving to money-launder for Hamas, Al Qaeda, and ISIS, has not taken on greater salience.
November 3, 2025 at 9:24 PM
I realize we’re in a post-truth environment, but: I cannot understand how the fact that the platform run by Changpeng Zhao—the crypto billionaire recently pardoned by Trump—was serving to money-launder for Hamas, Al Qaeda, and ISIS, has not taken on greater salience.
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
The pace of U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific last month matched the pace of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas at the peak of the Obama admin’s campaign there in 2010 (although those strikes each used more missiles and killed more people, on average)
- 1st month of strikes: 3 attacks, 17 deaths
- 2nd month of strikes: 12 attacks, 48 deaths
It is now 60 days since the first illegal boat strike in the waters of Latin America. That is an important date for the War Powers Resolution (see www.justsecurity.org/123717/war-p...).
- 2nd month of strikes: 12 attacks, 48 deaths
It is now 60 days since the first illegal boat strike in the waters of Latin America. That is an important date for the War Powers Resolution (see www.justsecurity.org/123717/war-p...).
November 3, 2025 at 7:18 PM
The pace of U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific last month matched the pace of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas at the peak of the Obama admin’s campaign there in 2010 (although those strikes each used more missiles and killed more people, on average)
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
This is quite a story: the US employed every strongarm tactic available, including personal threats against delegates and their families, to derail an agreement on reducing shipping emissions that was almost finalized. on.ft.com/47lq3dZ
November 3, 2025 at 2:11 PM
This is quite a story: the US employed every strongarm tactic available, including personal threats against delegates and their families, to derail an agreement on reducing shipping emissions that was almost finalized. on.ft.com/47lq3dZ
Here’s what you do in such a case: you retract the article, with an apology/correction. Then the editor and journalist go on a long, if not permanent, time out.
Fox News has now changed the headline and completely rewritten the story (without a correction). It makes no sense as a story anymore.
November 1, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Here’s what you do in such a case: you retract the article, with an apology/correction. Then the editor and journalist go on a long, if not permanent, time out.
The integration of national security and foreign policy across domains is, well, why you have a functioning NSC.
A war in Venezuela could precipitate a massive hemispheric refugee crisis, worse than that already caused by the incompetence and corruption of the Maduro gov. Going to be a lot harder to kill alleged drug dealers on the high seas when those boats are filled with people fleeing the war you launched
October 31, 2025 at 6:12 PM
The integration of national security and foreign policy across domains is, well, why you have a functioning NSC.
A war in Venezuela could precipitate a massive hemispheric refugee crisis, worse than that already caused by the incompetence and corruption of the Maduro gov. Going to be a lot harder to kill alleged drug dealers on the high seas when those boats are filled with people fleeing the war you launched
October 31, 2025 at 6:11 PM
A war in Venezuela could precipitate a massive hemispheric refugee crisis, worse than that already caused by the incompetence and corruption of the Maduro gov. Going to be a lot harder to kill alleged drug dealers on the high seas when those boats are filled with people fleeing the war you launched
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
Hard to imagine a more sinister & dangerous argument, couched in euphemism & high-minded language. "This essay does not argue liberalism will collapse, only that [US] military officers should be intellectually (and spiritually) prepared for alternatives." warontherocks.com/2025/10/the-...
The American Military Officer After Liberalism
Across academia, government, and Silicon Valley, on social media, and in leading journals, intellectuals and political leaders are openly debating what
warontherocks.com
October 30, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Hard to imagine a more sinister & dangerous argument, couched in euphemism & high-minded language. "This essay does not argue liberalism will collapse, only that [US] military officers should be intellectually (and spiritually) prepared for alternatives." warontherocks.com/2025/10/the-...
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
BREAKING: The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 7,500 and they will be mostly white South Africans.
Trump administration limits number of refugees to 7,500 and they're mostly white South Africans
The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 7,500 and they will be mostly white South Africans.
bit.ly
October 30, 2025 at 4:39 PM
BREAKING: The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 7,500 and they will be mostly white South Africans.
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
Tucker Carlson interviewed white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes on Monday, sitting politely as Fuentes criticized the power of “organized Jewry in America.”
www.thebulwark.com/p/one-of-the...
www.thebulwark.com/p/one-of-the...
One of the Most Dangerous Interviews Ever in MAGA Media
Why Tucker Carlson platformed white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
www.thebulwark.com
October 30, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Tucker Carlson interviewed white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes on Monday, sitting politely as Fuentes criticized the power of “organized Jewry in America.”
www.thebulwark.com/p/one-of-the...
www.thebulwark.com/p/one-of-the...
Reposted by Zach Dorfman
Defense Department officials do not know who they have killed in the military strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean, according to Democratic lawmakers.
DOD can’t say who its killed in military strikes against drug smugglers
Lawmakers left frustrated after a classified briefing with department officials.
www.politico.com
October 30, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Defense Department officials do not know who they have killed in the military strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean, according to Democratic lawmakers.
I’m not sure how such a proposal would even work. Holding to the side the fact that FBI has decades of specialized CI experience in major U.S. cities across the country, would ODNI simply have managerial authorities over Bureau experts? Or would ODNI seek to recreate itself as an American MI5?
The FBI says a proposal by House lawmakers to strip the bureau of its authority over counterintelligence efforts and hand it over to DNI Tulsi Gabbard would create confusion and undermine national security. www.nbcnews.com/politics/nati...
FBI slams House proposal to grant Tulsi Gabbard leading role on counterintelligence
The CIA and other intelligence officials share many of the FBI’s misgivings about the House proposal, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
www.nbcnews.com
October 30, 2025 at 6:57 PM
I’m not sure how such a proposal would even work. Holding to the side the fact that FBI has decades of specialized CI experience in major U.S. cities across the country, would ODNI simply have managerial authorities over Bureau experts? Or would ODNI seek to recreate itself as an American MI5?