Senior Deep State operatives in the U.S. national security bureaucracy operate like the mafia. To recruit new members into their ranks, they place their subordinates through tests of professional and moral compromise. To generate blackmail material over a subordinate, a Deep State superior will have his charge commit a crime. To sweeten that bitter pill, Deep States superiors bestow prestigious medals on their freshly compromised subordinates – but for precisely the opposite of what they just did. The commendation narratives accompanying such medals whitewashes the crimes of the recipient, thus serving as an insurance policy against accountability.
—
Lieutenant Colonel Brian T. Bruggeman called me at the White House on February 20, 2017.
“Why is [James H.] Baker investigating me?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone,” Bruggeman said.
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“I need to ask you some questions in person.”
By that time, I had known Bruggeman for several years. We had worked in the same office suite and had socialized together both in and out of the Pentagon. Half a dozen times or so, after a long week, we joined ONA’s other military assistants and civilian staff for a drink. Over a beer at an Irish pub on Pentagon Row we swapped stories about our kids. He was particularly proud of his son’s Little League baseball team.
“Brian, you can’t investigate me on behalf of Baker. You and I are both his subordinates. And we’ve worked together for years, in the same office. That’s a second conflict of interest. Is this about the leak of Japanese classified information?”
“That, and other things,” he said.
“Baker himself is a leak suspect. That’s a third conflict of interest. Don’t you see?”
“I think you’re being uncooperative.”
“Do you want me to be uncooperative?”
“Why would I want that?” Bruggeman said in an unusually distant voice.
“It would make your life easier.”
“Well, you’re right, that would make my life easier.”
“Because then you could write that in your report for Baker.” Silence.
“Brian, you’ve got an unbridgeable conflict of interest. You need to recuse yourself.”
“I can’t do that,” he said.
Bruggeman was scheduled to retire from the U.S. Marine Corps in a few months, so any misconduct he committed now wouldn’t threaten his career. Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work had done something similar when he used a soon-to-retire Barbara Westgate to do his dirty business.
“Brian, only criminal investigators attached to the DoD OIG are authorized to conduct leak investigations of classified Foreign Government Information.”
“What?”
In my dozen years working in the Office of Net Assessment, I had gotten to know six or seven military advisors to the director from the U.S. Marines. Several became my friends. I liked Bruggeman and felt sorry for him.
From the high pitch of Bruggeman’s voice, I could tell that Baker had put his subordinate in a vise, was coercing him into breaking the law, and was pressuring him to defile and betray everything the U.S. Marine Corps stood for. That included, as Bruggeman and all Marine officers knew well, standing up to transgressing superiors and protecting whistleblowers.
In 1776, a Marine captain aboard the USS Warren delivered a petition to the Continental Congress detailing wrongdoing by none other than the Commander of the Continental Navy, Esek Hopkins. On July 30, 1778, the Continental Congress chose right over might. It unanimously rallied to the side of the Marine captain, suspended the commodore from his post, and commended the federal whistleblower:
It is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states.
From the high pitch of Bruggeman’s voice, I could tell that Baker had put his subordinate in a vise, was coercing him into breaking the law, and was pressuring him to defile and betray everything the U.S. Marine Corps stood for.
For reasons I still do not fully understand, what Baker did to Bruggeman made me angrier than I felt at any time during my five-year ordeal with “administrative due process.” On February 23, 2017, I wrote to the leadership of WHS and the DoD Office of General Counsel, copying WHS General Counsel John Albanese, a subordinate of DoD’s top lawyer Paul Koffsky; Christopher “Kappy” Kapellas, WHS Director of the Human Resources Directorate; WHS Executive Services head Karen Finnegan-Myers; and her direct subordinate Marcia Case. All these officials were members of DoD’s Senior Executive Service:
I fear Jim Baker coerced Brian [Bruggeman] into conducting this administrative investigation where he has an unbridgeable conflict of interest. . . . while this spurious attack has distracted me from my duties at the NSC, I do not want Brian to get hurt. He is an otherwise fine Officer and family man. Please do what you can to minimize the damage.
I assumed that these senior DoD personnel experts and attorneys would know and care about the illegality and potential criminality of this investigation. A day later, Kapellas responded, saying I should cooperate with Baker’s newest rogue investigation.
—
Baker knew Bruggeman and I were friends, or may have suspected that the Marine was part of the same tradition as his forbears from the USS Warren. To test that possibility, he ordered his subordinate in writing to contact WHS lawyer James Vietti should his “independence or objectivity become impaired, preventing a fair and impartial review.” That presented Bruggeman with a clear choice. He could follow the law and refuse to follow Baker’s clearly illegal directive, or not.
Sure enough, Baker had judged Bruggeman’s character accurately. The Marine joined Baker’s and [Anthony L.] Russell’s scheme. But, as I discovered in the playbook, Baker gave him a tight deadline of twenty-nine days to investigate me and complete his report of investigation. Unaware that I had the playbook, Baker told Judge Foreman that Bruggeman’s only restriction was to “be objective and take your time.”
My lawyer then presented Baker with his very own signed directive ordering Bruggeman to complete his task on that unreasonably tight timeline. Baker flushed and, under the courtroom’s overhead lights, glistened brightly with sweat. He then turned on a dime, coming up with a completely different explanation for his investigative haste. The real reason for the rush job, Baker told Foreman, with his eyes darting across the courtroom from side to side, was out of mercy for me:
The reason in my mind for the haste was, this was a terrible thing that was about to happen. I was about to investigate a member of my—a trusted member of my team and that person would—their teammates would be asked about, Mr. Lovinger’s behavior and what they had observed, and Mr. Lovinger would feel threatened and angry probably.
My lawyer then presented Baker with his very own signed directive ordering Bruggeman to complete his task on that unreasonably tight timeline. Baker flushed and, under the courtroom’s overhead lights, glistened brightly with sweat.
But that was absurd. Baker was in a hurry to scapegoat me to satisfy the demands of a foreign intelligence officer. If Baker couldn’t find an American scapegoat, the spy warned Russell, he would cancel the Task Force:
Without any significant update (such as arrest, or at least, identification of the leak perpetrators), I think no parties on our side would like to share any of our analyses and participate in the [Task Force]. This project deals with one of our immediate threats and this type of leak incident could tip a balance in life-or-death competition with our potential adversaries…. I hope your side could show us that this would never happen again as quickly as possible.4
In the middle of Bruggeman’s twenty-nine-day investigation, Baker bribed him by promising to nominate him for the Defense Superior Service Medal. Only a few would ever know how Bruggeman actually earned that medal. As he had done with Russell, Baker besmirched the integrity of a high military honor to buy Bruggeman’s silence….
On May 3, 2017, two days after my removal from the White House, Baker rewarded Russell for a job well done, recommending him for a U.S. Coast Guard command on the grounds that he had been a model officer exhibiting the “highest standards of integrity and ethics.”
Baker then nominated Russell for a prestigious military medal, which he pinned on his uniform at a majestic ceremony on June 29, 2017, proudly attended by his wife, sons, and extended family.
In his medal citation, there was no mention of Russell’s role in managing a task force that had leaked America’s most important East Asian ally’s “life or death” secrets and threatened its fleet in the Western Pacific. Rather, “as the action officer and primary American representative for a high-level United States/Japan Bilateral Task Force, which had a significant, positive impact on a key alliance” [emphasis added], Russell had deftly managed an influential, yet delicate, U.S./Japan bilateral analytic effort that significantly enhanced channels for the candid exchange of views, directly contributing to improved alliance relations. The distinctive accomplishments of Commander Russell reflect great credit upon himself, the United States Coast Guard, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
In the middle of Bruggeman’s twenty-nine-day investigation, Baker bribed him by promising to nominate him for the Defense Superior Service Medal... As he had done with Russell, Baker besmirched the integrity of a high military honor to buy Bruggeman’s silence...
Few would know the truth about any of this, and even fewer would understand that Baker was making Russell bulletproof. If anyone ever questioned Russell’s role on the Task Force, he would point to the citation accompanying his award, confident that the U.S. Department of Defense would vouch for its sanctity. By then, Baker was well practiced in rigging DoD promotions and medals to reward misconduct, including what seems like the commission of crimes.
Several months before awarding Russell a military medal, Deputy Secretary of Defense Work nominated Baker for a Presidential Rank Award. As with the citation on Russell’s medal, the basis of Baker’s award was that he had strengthened U.S. alliances, when in fact the evidentiary record showed that Baker had a long history of intentionally doing just the opposite.
U.S. Coast Guard leadership reviewed Russell’s official record, liked what they saw, and promoted him. Captain Russell’s next assignment was to his alma mater. As Chief of the Department of Professional Maritime Studies at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, he would model the qualities of honor and integrity for the Republic’s next generation of military leaders. After the academy, Russell rounded out his career in uniform as Chief of Public Affairs for the United States Coast Guard. In October 2022, Russell re-joined the Academy’s faculty as Executive Director, Center for Arctic Study and Policy.
Read more in The Insider Threat: How the Deep State Undermines America from Within
