PARDON ME? Word around Washington is that President Trump is thinking about whether he wants to issue 250 new presidential pardons to mark the country's 250th birthday. Funny enough, the rumor is circulating as Reuters published its own investigation into just who gets a pardon and why. Separately, both The Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal are reporting that the White House is weighing the idea of more pardons though there’s been no confirmation that it will happen. That’s never stopped the rumor mill of course, which is circulating names like Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli, Malaysian fugitive financier Jho Low, and a OneTaste cult co-founder. One attorney described the idea of pardons to The Atlantic as a "three-ring circus," with access reportedly running $1-2 million per person. Buried in the noise, though, are a couple of names that'll make national security experts take notice. Edward Snowden and John Kiriakou keep surfacing in the broader 2026 pardon speculation, courtesy of advocates who have been lobbying for both. Kiriakou, who pled guilty to leaking the identity of a covert operative to a reporter is already out of prison but he spent a stretch post-prison hosting a show for RT (Russian Television) and is now finding success on the podcast circuit here in the U.S.. Snowden, who stole information about a bunch of classified intelligence programs when he was working as a contractor, fled the country, and then shared the information with reporters (and who knows who else). At last report, he was still sitting in Moscow holding a Russian passport. If he was so upset about some of the programs he had access to - seems like he could have just shared his concerns with a) his supervisors b) his agency’s Inspector General c) Agency compliance officers d) The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community e) Congressional intelligence committees whose job is to provide oversight in the interests of the American people, or f) his own legal counsel in communicating protected concerns. The downside for him though, is that if he had followed any of those legal avenues, he likely wouldn’t have gotten a free trip to Russia.
SHOOTING HIS MOUTH OFF: Julia Davis reporting in The Daily Beast says that Vladimir Solovyov, Kremlin TV's chief war cheerleader, seems to have fallen out of favor. His ratings are sliding, and Solovyov's broadcast messages have quietly pivoted from "total victory" to "please don't panic about the fuel shortages." Davis says Solovyov was expecting to receive a medal from Putin but was snubbed. Davis adds that Solovyov last week volunteered to go to the front lines himself, as a sniper. Given his aim so far, Ukraine can rest easy. Meanwhile, according to Forbes, an anonymous Polymarket user has bet roughly $400,000 on "Putin out as President of Russia by December 31, 2026" - a wager the crowd (when last we checked) - was giving just a 12% chance of hitting. Those feel like long odds, but apparently someone's feeling lucky, or well-informed. No bets on whether Solovyov’s tenure outlasts Putin’s.
THE SPOOK SPREADSHEET: The Trump administration is pushing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to compile a master list of every foreign espionage target the U.S. is tracking, according to The New York Times. The list would reportedly include suspected spies, potential recruits - the works. The FBI and CIA, who would be asked to hand over the identities behind their most sensitive investigations and assets, are said to be not enthusiastic. Acting ODNI chief Bill Pulte, who ran the housing portfolio, is the man who'd be minding the store. Centralizing the names of every spy and suspected-spy in one place is the kind of idea that sounds efficient right up until someone asks how it gets protected. But not to worry. The Intelligence Community would be ordered to protect the document like it was a stash of gold bars.
A RECRUITMENT INCENTIVE TO DIE FOR: Russia is reportedly having trouble finding men who are willing to die for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, and the math may explain why. According to Russian military bloggers - cited by historian Peter Frankopan in Foreign Policy - the average new Russian recruit can expect to survive between 10 days and three weeks from arrival at a training ground - to death in a combat zone. Once on the battlefield, that window narrows to somewhere between 20 and 35 minutes. Moscow is said to be offering bonuses of up to $80,000 in cash and $140,000 in debt relief. These are incentives that, measured against the actuarial reality, work out to a fairly aggressive hourly rate for however long the recruit manages to remain alive.
THE APOLITICAL OPERATIVE: Bill Pulte, the acting Director of National Intelligence, capped an intelligence community celebration of America's 250th birthday last week with a message of reassurance for the assembled spy chiefs, cabinet members, and foreign agency representatives. "My message was simple," Pulte wrote on X following the June 25 event, "we are focusing DNI on being an apolitical intelligence agency that gives the President the best intel and operates based on the law and the statute." The next day, The New York Times reported that Pulte had installed as his ODNI chief of staff Christina Norton, a former Republican National Committee official whose recent work for the GOP centered on election issues, including overseeing poll-monitoring efforts during the 2024 presidential election. According to former U.S. officials cited by the Times, Norton had previously served as Pulte's chief of staff at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the perch from which Pulte launched a series of mortgage fraud referrals against prominent Trump critics before being tapped to run ODNI. It was not Pulte's first public declaration of political neutrality. He told the Detroit Free Press in 2021 that he discouraged people from baiting him into politics. "I stay apolitical," he said.
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