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    Intelligence Officials Continue Chat Messages Inquiry

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    Officials confirmed that the N.S.A. managed a system that had been used for sexually explicit chats and L.G.B.T.Q. discussions. An order to fire dozens after the chats were revealed drew scrutiny amid a military purge of transgender soldiers.Intelligence officials are continuing to investigate sexually explicit messages that were posted on a government chat tool, the National Security Agency said Friday, exchanges that prompted the nation’s top intelligence official to order the firing of more than 100 officers this week.In a statement on Friday, a spokesman for the National Security Agency said the messages were posted on Intelink, a tool that the N.S.A. manages for the entire intelligence community.“N.S.A. takes the allegations of recently identified misconduct on Intelink very seriously,” the spokesman said in a statement. “Behavior of this type will not be tolerated on this or any other N.S.A.-hosted system.”The existence of the messages was disclosed on Monday by Christopher F. Rufo, a conservative activist. Intelligence officials confirmed that the National Security Agency managed the system that had been used for the sexually explicit chats.People briefed on the inquiry said some of the chat logs that were made public had been altered or manipulated, in some cases to remove classified markings or other material. But the people familiar with the inquiry said some context was removed from the exchanges and screenshots in other instances might not have been accurate representations.Long-serving U.S. civil servants said there was little doubt that some of what was posted was inappropriate for any workplace, much less a system in classified networks that is meant for intelligence sharing. At least one of the chat rooms involved was shut down last year, according to a U.S. official.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      F.B.I. Returns Materials Taken From Mar-a-Lago to Trump

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      Among the items taken from the president’s Florida residence were files that investigators said contained classified material and formed the central evidence in one of the criminal cases against him.The F.B.I. on Friday gave President Trump the boxes of materials the bureau had seized during a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2022, the White House announced.Files that investigators said contained classified material were among the thousands of items taken in the search, and they had formed the central evidence in a criminal case charging Mr. Trump with illegally taking them when he left office after his first term and blocking the government’s efforts to retrieve them.But a judge unexpectedly threw out the charges last year, and prosecutors dropped their appeal to reinstate them after Mr. Trump was re-elected in November. Jack Smith, the special counsel in the case, said at the time that the charges had been dismissed because of a department policy that barred filing charges against a sitting president.Mr. Trump repeatedly argued that he had a legal right to the documents despite their classification. After the case was dropped, the president and his allies said they would seek the return of the files that had been seized.Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said that happened Friday afternoon.“The F.B.I. is giving the president his property back that was taken during the unlawful and illegal raids,” Mr. Cheung said. “We are taking possession of the boxes today and loading them onto Air Force One.”Mr. Cheung told reporters that the boxes of materials taken from Mar-a-Lago were loaded onto Air Force One before the president’s departure for Mar-a-Lago on Friday evening. Alina Habba, the counselor to the president, told reporters that the boxes included personal items from Mr. Trump and his family.In his own statement, the president said he wanted to make the materials “part of the Trump Presidential Library.”“The Department of Justice has just returned the boxes that deranged Jack Smith made such a big deal about,” he said, adding, “I did absolutely nothing wrong.” More

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      Devin Nunes, Pugnacious Trump Loyalist, to Lead Espionage Advisory Board

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      As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he attacked the Russia inquiry and Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment. Now, Mr. Nunes runs Mr. Trump’s social media company.President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would appoint Devin Nunes, a former member of Congress who had used his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to try to delegitimize the Trump-Russia investigation, to head an independent advisory board on espionage policy.The organization — the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — dates back to the early Cold War and consists of private citizens with top-level security clearances who are supposed to help the White House analyze spy agency effectiveness and planning. Its members do not need Senate confirmation, so presidents can pick whomever they want for it.In a statement, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Nunes — who is currently the chief executive of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform — for his counterinvestigation into the Trump-Russia inquiry in 2017-18, when Mr. Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee as a Republican congressman from California.“While continuing his leadership of Trump Media & Technology Group, Devin will draw on his experience as former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.Some members of the advisory board also serve on a presidential Intelligence Oversight Board, which was created in the 1970s after a congressional investigation into abuses by national security agencies and which tries to ferret out illegal spying activities. That group typically includes the larger board’s chair, so it is likely that Mr. Nunes will participate in it as well.The work products of the two boards are usually kept secret. A rare exception came in 2023, when the Biden administration publicly released a report in which the two panels urged Congress to extend an expiring law that authorizes a warrantless surveillance program, but also called for new limits on the F.B.I.’s ability to use information gathered under the program.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Team’s Rejection of a Transition Deal Adds a Wrinkle to Its Transparency Pledges

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      The president-elect’s team said it would disclose its donors’ names and not take donations from foreigners, but it isn’t legally bound to adhere to those promises.The refusal by President-elect Donald J. Trump’s team to sign a transition agreement with the General Services Administration means that, despite the team’s pledges to abide by several transparency customs of presidential handovers, it isn’t legally bound to follow through on its promises.Presidential transitions abide by a series of laws and norms that enable the outgoing administration to brief incoming officials with nonpublic information and to fund transition operations. Mr. Trump’s transition team, after forgoing the $7.2 million in government funds that the G.S.A. would have provided if they had reached an agreement, has promised to be transparent by disclosing the names of its donors and said it would not accept donations from foreigners. In an agreement with the White House, the transition team also released an ethics pledge, but the pledge may not be compliant with transition rules.Mr. Trump’s transition team released a statement this week saying the decision to opt for private funding alone saves taxpayer dollars.But the Trump team did not indicate when donors’ names would be made public, or if the amounts of their donations would also be released. If Mr. Trump’s team accepted the help of the G.S.A., donors would need to be disclosed within 30 days of the inauguration, which is set for Jan. 20. Past presidential transitions have also limited individual donations to $5,000, a cap that Mr. Trump’s team has not committed to. The G.S.A. would also have provided secure lines of communication and office space to conduct internal meetings.After initially missing an Oct. 1 deadline, Mr. Trump’s team this week signed an agreement with the White House that will begin formal briefings led by departing administration members. But Mr. Trump has continued to refuse to sign an agreement with the Justice Department that would allow the F.B.I. to run security checks for transition staff. Without clearances, Biden administration officials cannot share classified information with many transition team members.This week, Mr. Trump’s team published an ethics plan for its transition staff. Though President Biden’s staff accepted the plan in its agreement with Mr. Trump, the plan may run afoul of the Presidential Transition Act, which mandates that such plans detail how a president-elect himself will address his own conflicts of interest. Mr. Trump’s plan does not appear to do that.Representatives for the Trump transition team and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.“This engagement allows our intended cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations, including the deployment of landing teams to every department and agency, and complete the orderly transition of power,” Susie Wiles, Mr. Trump’s incoming chief of staff, said in the statement on Tuesday about the agreement with the White House.During his 2016 presidential transition, Mr. Trump signed the agreement with the G.S.A. By his inauguration, the transition had about 120 employees and disclosed $6.5 million in funds raised, as well as $2.4 million in reimbursements from the federal government.Ken Bensinger More

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      Trump Team Signs Transition Agreement but Shuns F.B.I. Clearances

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump’s team will have some formal briefings with outgoing staff members, but it has so far refused to allow the F.B.I. to do security clearances for transition members.President-elect Donald J. Trump’s team has signed a transition agreement with the White House that will allow them to begin formal briefings with outgoing staff members in agencies across the government, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff said on Tuesday evening.But Mr. Trump’s team has so far refused to sign an agreement with the Justice Department to allow the F.B.I. to do security clearances for transition members. Without that, Biden administration officials will be unable to share classified information with many of Mr. Trump’s transition aides.The Trump team is also refusing to sign an agreement with the General Services Administration that usually provides secure office space, government email accounts and other support. White House officials said that would make sharing information with Mr. Trump’s officials more difficult over the next two months.In recent decades, incoming presidents have signed agreements with their predecessors to smooth the transition of power. The goal is to ensure that the new administration is ready to take over on Jan. 20 and that its officials adhere to basic ethical standards.Susie Wiles, who will serve as Mr. Trump’s top staff member in the White House, said in a statement that the president-elect had directed that his team sign the traditional memorandum of understanding so that the process of information sharing between the outgoing and incoming administrations could begin.“This engagement allows our intended cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations, including the deployment of landing teams to every department and agency, and complete the orderly transition of power,” Ms. Wiles said in the statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Leaked U.S. Intelligence Suggests Israel Is Preparing to Strike Iran

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      American officials are trying to determine the source of the leak, which describes military drills and weapons placement, and how damaging it might be.The leak of a pair of highly classified U.S. intelligence documents describing recent satellite images of Israeli military preparations for a potential strike on Iran offers a window into the intense American concerns about Israel’s plans. It also has U.S. officials working to understand the size of the improper disclosure.The two documents were prepared in recent days by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for analyzing images and information collected by American spy satellites. They began circulating on Friday on the Telegram app and were being discussed by largely pro-Iran accounts.The documents, which offer interpretations of satellite imagery, provide insight into a potential strike by Israel on Iran in the coming days. Such a strike has been anticipated in retaliation for an Iranian assault earlier this month, which was itself a response to an Israeli attack.One of the documents is titled “Israel: Air Force Continues Preparations for Strike on Iran,” and describes recent exercises that appeared to rehearse elements of such a strike. The second document details how Israel is shifting the placement of its missiles and weapons in case Iran responded with strikes of its own.Officials were divided over the seriousness of the leak, which did not appear to reveal any new American capabilities. The documents describe but do not show the satellite images. If no further documents come to light the damage would be limited, some of the officials say — besides revealing, once again, the degree to which the United States spies on one of its closest allies. Other officials say that any exposure of an ally’s war plans is a serious problem.Officials privately acknowledged that the documents were authentic, although the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      After Just a Week, the N.Y.P.D. Commissioner Faces a Crisis of His Own

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      Thomas G. Donlon, brought in to bring stability to the Police Department when his predecessor resigned, had his homes searched by federal agents.In his first week as New York City’s interim police commissioner, Thomas G. Donlon responded to a police shooting that injured four people, including one of his own officers.He then had to prepare for the U.N. General Assembly, an annual logistical and security challenge that was compounded by deepening conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine.On Friday, trouble came for the commissioner himself: Federal agents arrived at the residences of Mr. Donlon, 71, a former F.B.I. counterterrorism official hired after his predecessor departed amid an investigation. They seized documents that he said had come into his possession about 20 years ago.According to two federal officials with knowledge of the matter, the materials that the agents sought were classified documents.For a department and a city roiled by report after report of search warrants, resignations, subpoenas and investigations by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, this latest development took a turn into the absurd.“At a certain point, we all would walk out of the movie theater because the script was just too fantastical, incredulous, and unbelievable for real-life,” Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, said in a social media post.Tracking Investigations in Eric Adams’s OrbitSeveral federal corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York, who faces re-election next year. Here is a closer look at how people with ties to Adams are related to the inquiries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Memoir Offers an Insider’s Perspective Into the Pentagon’s U.F.O. Hunt

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      In “Imminent,” the former intelligence official who ran a once-secret program shares some of what he knows.Luis Elizondo made headlines in 2017 when he resigned as a senior intelligence official running a shadowy Pentagon program investigating U.F.O.s and publicly denounced the excessive secrecy, lack of resources and internal opposition that he said were thwarting the effort.Elizondo’s disclosures at the time created a sensation. They were buttressed by explosive videos and testimony from Navy pilots who had encountered unexplained aerial phenomena, and led to congressional inquiries, legislation and a 2023 House hearing in which a former U.S. intelligence official testified that the federal government has retrieved crashed objects of nonhuman origin.Now Elizondo, 52, has gone further in a new memoir. In the book he asserted that a decades-long U.F.O. crash retrieval program has been operating as a supersecret umbrella group made up of government officials working with defense and aerospace contractors. Over the years, he wrote, technology and biological remains of nonhuman origin have been retrieved from these crashes.“Humanity is, in fact, not the only intelligent life in the universe, and not the alpha species,” Elizondo wrote.The book, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for U.F.O.s,” is being published by HarperCollins on Aug. 20 after a yearlong security review by the Pentagon.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Defense Dept. Contractor Arrested With Dozens of Classified Documents

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      Investigators are still trying to determine why the contractor, Gokhan Gun, who became an American citizen in 2021, hoarded so many documents.A Defense Department contractor was arrested on Friday with dozens of highly classified documents he had obtained using his security clearance, as he prepared to depart for a trip to Mexico, according to prosecutors.The contractor, Gokhan Gun, an electrical engineer born in Turkey who now lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, printed thousands of documents at his work for the Air Force. Many were unclassified, but some were “batches of documents from the top secret network,” according to an 11-page complaint unsealed in a Virginia federal court.Mr. Gun is charged with illegally obtaining and retaining national defense secrets.The case is one of several instances in recent years in which soldiers and civilians working for the military improperly retained military secrets. In March, a young Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, Jack Teixeira, accused of posting secret intelligence reports online, pleaded guilty in exchange for a 16-year sentence and an agreement to document his activities to the authorities.Investigators are still trying to determine why Mr. Gun, who became an American citizen in 2021, hoarded so many documents. He nonchalantly carried them out of his office in rolled-up wads in plastic shopping bags, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the case.Mr. Gun, who frequently travels overseas and owns homes in Virginia, Texas and Florida, was taken into custody early Friday by F.B.I. agents who arrived to execute a search warrant at his house in Falls Church, Va. He was preparing to leave for what he described as a fishing trip with friends, intending to board a flight to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that left at 6:52 a.m.Agents confronted him in his driveway as he awaited a ride share driver. Among his luggage they found a black backpack that contained a document marked top secret and a listing of his security clearances.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More