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SpyTalk, now in its 15th year, is where Jeff Stein leads an all-star team of veteran investigative reporters, writers, and subject-matter experts who will take you behind the scenes of the national security state.You may remember Jeff as the Spytalk columnist for years at Newsweek, and before that, at The Washington Post and before that Congressional Quarterly. This time around, however, he’s aided by a sterling roster of veteran journalists as contributing editors. They include: Jonathan Broder, a former CQ foreign news editor and Newsweek correspondent; John Dinges, a former NPR News managing editor and Godfrey Lowell Cabot Professor of Journalism Emeritus at Columbia University; Peter Eisner, a prolific investigative author and former deputy foreign editor at The Washington Post; Elaine Shannon, TIME magazine's “queen of drugs and thugs;” and Ross Schneiderman, a former deputy editor of Newsweek.Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.

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Inside the Hunt for Russia’s ‘Fourth Man’ Within the CIA

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Secret mole-hunting unit fingered top CIA official as a Kremlin spy, new book alleges.

SpyTalk | Published May 13, 2022

Congress Eyes ‘Dumpster Fire’ of Hate Talk in Spy Chat Rooms

SPYTALK

CIA veterans said partisan political talk exploded after Trump appointed Mike Pompeo as its director.

SpyTalk | Published Mar 27, 2022

Spy Agency Staffers Think Jan. 6 Was ‘Justified’: Ex-NSA Vet

‘DUMPSTER FIRE’

An internal U.S. intelligence messaging system was overrun with ugly hate speech during the Trump administration, the veteran contractor said.

SpyTalk | Published Mar 11, 2022

How American Cops Start Spying for Fascist Regimes

DUPED

Foreign intelligence agencies around the world are itching to recruit U.S. police officers to do their bidding in America—and they’ve had success doing so in the past.

SpyTalk | Published Jan 13, 2022

Trump Spy Chief Cozies Up to Serbia’s Pro-Moscow Strongman

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Are the ex-president’s acolytes cultivating European autocrats and extremists for Trump’s White House return as head of a transatlantic Axis of Evil?

SpyTalk | Published Aug 25, 2021

Taliban May Have Inherited ‘100s’ of Missiles From Ex-Gov’t

‘RELIABLE AND DEADLY’

Experts say that even a small number of MANPADS—man-portable air defense systems—could prove catastrophic.

SpyTalk | Published Aug 23, 2021

Why Is the FBI Ignoring Far-Right Violence Occurring Openly?

IN PLAIN SIGHT

Congress needs to go beyond the crimes of Jan. 6 to the larger question of what the FBI has been doing—and not—to combat violent domestic extremists.

SpyTalk | Published Aug 02, 2021

Did the Navy Try to Design Its Own UFO?

STAR TREK UNIVERSE

The U.S. Patent Office and the Navy greenlit a wild scheme for a physics-denying craft. Was it a psy-war op?

SpyTalk | Published Jun 25, 2021

Feds Shoot Down Rumor China’s Top Spymaster Defected to U.S.

‘CORRECT THE RECORD’

A government official told SpyTalk that claims Dong Jingwei, vice minister of China’s principle espionage and internal security agency, fled to the U.S. are simply false.

SpyTalk | Published Jun 22, 2021

Mystery of Top Chinese Spymaster’s Rumored Defection Deepens

SPY GAMES

Beijing’s sketchy report of Dong Jingwei’s appearance at a spy-catcher seminar fuels suspicion that the top counterintelligence official has fled to U.S.

SpyTalk | Published Jun 21, 2021

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