November 17, 2016

America’s Top Intelligence Official Has Submitted His Resignation

It’s been coming for a while.

Director of National Intelligence James ClapperAndrew Harnik/AP

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Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the highest-ranking intelligence official in the United States, has submitted his resignation.

Clapper, an Air Force veteran who ran individual intelligence agencies under both Presidents Bush, told the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday that he has submitted his letter of resignation, saying it “felt pretty good.” He has long said he planned to step down at the end of the Obama administration.

NPR reported that Clapper’s resignation will take effect on Inauguration Day. Clapper’s office told the broadcaster that the decision was “not a move designed to register protest or lack of confidence in the incoming administration.”

But one element to Donald Trump’s win may have made Clapper’s decision even easier: Clapper helped force out retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, a close Trump ally who may become the next national security adviser, as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014.

Clapper was often a target for privacy and civil liberties groups fighting against the government’s mass surveillance programs. But given Trump’s messy transition and collection of hardline security advisers, Robyn Greene, a policy counsel at the Open Technology Institute, suggested that Clapper’s experience and competence will be missed.

 

 

 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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