A Ukrainian Independence Day Spy Caper
Wherein I catch Umbrella Man destroying sunflowers and he confesses
Good Morning:
A reminder that this evening at 7:00 pm Eastern time will be the first meeting of the Make America Read Again Book Club. You can join in the usual studio location (see below the paywall). I will post video to the site, but it will be paywalled.
I have a spy caper for you all to celebrate Ukraine’s Independence Day, which took place yesterday whether you know it or not.
Recently, the estimable Connor O’Brien, keeper of the Polonne Sunflower Garden outside of the #GatesOfHell, purchased a Ukrainian flag and a flagpole to put in the garden. Separately, I ordered eight very kitschy sunflower lights, which are solar-powered and light up at night. They look like this:
Connor and I installed the flag the other day, and yesterday, I went over to the sunflower to put in the kitschy sunflower lights, which are intended to make the sunflower garden visible at night from the embassy across the street.
I was walking around the sunflower garden, making sure all was okay, when I was approached by a large dog, who charged at me in friendly way from inside the patch of sunflowers:
The dog, whose name turns out to be Tito, was friendly enough and he slobbered on me a bit while I tried to figure out whether he was unattended or whether he was accompanied by a person.
Movement inside the sunflower garden quickly answered that question. Tito, who had seemed somewhat familiar, had a person with him—and it was a person I knew: Umbrella Man.
Umbrella Man was lying in the middle of the sunflower garden, where he had crushed a bunch of sunflowers. Here are some photos of Umbrella Man and Tito caught red-handed:
And here are some photos of the damage they did:
For those of you unfamiliar with Umbrella Man, he is the guy who lives next door to the Russian embassy who once tried to block one of my projections on the embassy by coming across the street and putting umbrellas in the way of the projectors. Hilarity ensured. Here is the video of that episode.
I have since then run into Umbrella Man, who goes by “Mike,” a few times. I even wrote up one of the encounters:
In the past, Umbrella Man has always refused to acknowledge his identity, saying he didn’t own any umbrellas and that he didn’t recall us meeting me over a projector incident.
I have also long suspected Umbrella Man of being the serial destroyer of sunflowers, though that was only a suspicion on my part.
Yet here he was, lying on the remains of crushed sunflowers, caught in flagrante delicta. And now Umbrella Man took a different tone.
After initially claiming to be Ukrainian, he shifted gears. He apologized for the damage to the sunflowers, saying he was just enjoying the garden and that damaging it was “not my intention.”
He also acknowledged being the Umbrella Man, saying he had just been overcome by emotion that evening in response to the projection. He denied working for the Russian embassy, saying he was an air conditioning maintenance worker from New Jersey. (He does not have a Russian accent, for whatever that’s worth.) And he expressed confusion about why I felt so strongly about the Russo-Ukraine war, describing it as something far away that doesn’t affect “us.” He noted that I had been trying to be provocative when I did the projection and he had been provoked.
We talked for about 20 minutes, before he went back across the street with Tito the dog. He apologized several times for the damage to the sunflowers, and promised not to do it again.
And no, I don’t believe this is whole story.
Here’s the video I made for Ukraine’s Independence Day:
Thursday on #DogShirtTV, we had a new estimable baby on the show! Also Mike Feinberg, who attended to show off the baby and talk about the continuing purge of career FBI officials. But mostly to show off the baby:
The FBI Purge Continues
Wherein Ben and Mike Feinberg discuss the continued firings of career FBI agents.
Friday I got distracted and I thus haven’t posted the show yet. Here’s what I got distracted by. The show will post this morning:
The Situation
In Wednesday’s “The Situation” column, I—reflecting on a panel in which Ruth Marcus, Jack Goldsmith, and I all raised alarm over the current state of the Department of Justice—weigh the magnitude of this exchange and ask how the integrity of the Department can be restored when the dominant American political faction has sought to undermine traditional norms of justice:
I have a few observations about this exchange. The first is just how extraordinary it is to have three veteran Justice Department watchers of diverse politics—none of us alarmists, all of us believers in the broad institutional continuity of the department across changes of administration and ideology—tripping over each other to describe the magnitude of the earthquake that has struck the department. I want to stress that we did not consult in advance about this question, at all. My praise of Goldsmith was intended to give him space to disagree with me and Marcus if he chose, not to buttress his doubling down on our points. You should understand this exchange, therefore, as three longtime students of the institution expressing unified alarm at where it is heading and how quickly it is heading there.
In Friday’s “The Situation” column, I respond to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s search of former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s house. I suggest that Bolton’s refusal to go through the full prepublication process when publishing “The Room Where It Happened” places him in a more precarious position than other former government officials the Trump administration has targeted because he took a legitimate risk, but conclude that the case against him would ultimately collapse under legal scrutiny:
Present the full facts of this case before a jury, if it really comes to that, and I suspect it’s going to be very hard to get a conviction against Bolton. While he behaved aggressively with respect to his prepublication review obligations, he is going to have a sympathetic story to tell any jury—one in which he tried to play by the rules and the rules were weaponized against him to prevent him from telling his story. Probable cause for a warrant is one thing. It’s quite another thing to convince a unanimous jury beyond a reasonable doubt that someone committed crimes.
I don’t know if Bolton did commit crimes or did not. I do know that I trust the Justice Department that decided to let sleeping dogs lie a great deal more to decide whether to pursue him than I trust the one so keen now to wake those dogs.
Recently On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Mary Ford
Where Does Afghanistan Stand After Four Years of Taliban Rule?
William Byrd assesses the Taliban’s policies after four years of governing Afghanistan, and argues that despite a stagnant economy and severe social and gender restrictions, the group has a firm stronghold on power. Byrd cautions, however, that analysts should not turn their heads from Kabul, emphasizing that historical precedent demonstrates that irrespective of the current political environment, regime change in Afghanistan can be difficult to predict.
Looking forward, the Taliban seem firmly entrenched in power, with few threats to their rule—especially since neighboring countries and great powers have no appetite for military involvement. However, Afghanistan’s turbulent history of unexpected, and often violent, regime change and leadership succession demonstrates the importance of closely following the country’s trajectory.
Taiwan’s Silicon Shield Is Turning Into a Target
Aidan Powers-Riggs and Sam Bresnick compare American and Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) advancements, arguing that Washington and Beijing’s race to achieve national AI supremacy may push Chinese President Xi Jinping to invade Taiwan with the aim of achieving two strategic objectives: Taiwanese “reunification” with mainland China and surpassing the U.S. on the AI playing field.
Most analysts agree that the United States holds a narrow lead over China in developing cutting-edge AI models, but this lead is largely built upon its access to superior Taiwan-made chips. As the AI competition intensifies and U.S.-China relations continue to deteriorate, fears that the United States is on the verge of gaining an insurmountable AI-enabled advantage could create a dangerous incentive for China to accelerate its long-standing efforts to bring Taiwan under its control and stanch the flow of leading-edge chips to Washington.
While political considerations will remain the primary factor shaping China’s Taiwan calculus, Beijing may view going on the offensive as its best shot at accomplishing two strategic objectives at once: achieving “reunification” and leveling the AI playing field.
The Inner Workings of the International Criminal Court
Alex Whiting reviews Yvonne McDermott’s book entitled, “Proving International Crimes.” Whiting argues that while McDermott was right to use truth and fairness as normative principles in her evaluation of the law and practice of proving crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC), she mistakenly overlooks the significance of efficiency—a metric the ICC scores poorly on—in her final assessment of the court.
By emphasizing truth and fairness, McDermott downgrades the importance of a third ideal that may be used to assess processes of proof, namely, efficiency. To be fair, McDermott has built some consideration of efficiency into her principle of fairness—she notes that the accused has a “right to trial without undue delay”—and it appears as an important value throughout her analysis. But while efficiency will often have to give way to truth and fairness, it nonetheless merits a place as a fundamental guiding principle. The accused is not alone in having an interest in expeditious proceedings; so do the prosecution, victims, affected communities, and the states supporting the court.
When the Chips Were Down, Russian Cybersecurity Picked a Side
In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren discusses the relationship between Russian cybersecurity firms and Moscow since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russians’ forced exodus to a new messenger app created by a state-controlled internet company, and London’s backdown on an order that would have required Apple to give the U.K. access to encrypted American iCloud data.
The analysis by the CNA think tank shows that when it comes to cybersecurity and great power competition, it pays in record-making margins for companies to choose sides.
The report thoroughly explores three Russian firms that offer different cybersecurity services: Kaspersky, Security Code, and Positive Technologies. All three had ties to the Russian state predating the war. Unsurprisingly, these ties have strengthened.
Podcasts
On Lawfare Daily and Scaling Laws, Alan Rozenshtein and Kevin Frazier sit down with Nathan Lambert and Keegan McBride to discuss the current state of Open AI model development, the security risks posed by the shift to open source, and what this transition means for the global AI ecosystem.
On Lawfare Daily, Scott Anderson sits down with Asaf Lubin and Deborah Housen-Couriel to take stock of the European Court of Human Rights' decision in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia and what the decision means for the future of war.
Videos
On August 22 at 4 pm ET, I sat down with Anna Bower, Roger Parloff, and James Pearce to discuss legal challenges to Alina Habba’s appointment to be U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss criminal charges against him, and more.
Documents
Katherine Pompilio shares the text of the ruling in the civil case of People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump et al.
Mary Ford shares the text of a ruling by the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. A federal judge found that Alina Habba, New Jersey’s acting U.S. attorney, had been serving without legal authority since July 1.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is a bison calf which arrived unexpectedly last week.
Minnesota Public Radio reports:
The White Earth Nation’s Bison Program welcomed its first calf this week to its breeding herd located near Naytahwaush. The tribal nation stated in a post on Thursday, “This historic birth marks a new chapter in our ongoing efforts to restore the bison to Anishinaabe lands.”
Jack Heisler, bison foreman of the program, says they weren’t expecting a calf until spring 2026 at the earliest.
“Wildlife doesn't follow a script. This bison calf being born, it didn't follow a script either, because the mama is so young,” Heisler said. Bison typically give birth during the springtime.
Heisler says there were no plans to begin breeding until this summer.
Bison, or mashkode-bizhiki in the Ojibwe language, once roamed and thrived on Minnesota’s prairies in large numbers. By the 19th century, settlement and overhunting of bison had reduced the population to a small number of captive bison.
White Earth Nation partners with the InterTribal Buffalo Council — a partnership of over 80 tribes aiming to restore bison herds to tribal lands for cultural and spiritual enhancement and preservation.
In honor of today’s Beast, show up without warning. If you’re sufficiently cute, you’ll probably get away with it.
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