Kushner and the president were apparently impressed with the young briefer and took an interest in him. Germany-based Staffbase, which provides a suite of employee engagement tools for companies, raises $145M led by General Atlantic — Chemnitz-based employee engagement firm Staffbase has received $145 million in a financing round led by growth equity firm General Atlantic. He was going, it turned out, to the White House. But the Trump administration recently announced a ceasefire agreement for southwest Syria negotiated with Russia. Others stressed his commitment to Trump’s worldview, such as it is Trump’s foreign policy statements have been long on rhetoric, but short on specifics—prompting leading figures within the White House to contend for influence, seeking to persuade the president to back their preferred approaches. He struck one classmate there at the time as a libertarian, but over the years seemed to shift in a more hawkish direction, the classmate said. “It is noteworthy that someone with very limited experience (a very junior GG-12 in DIA) is appointed to such a senior and critical position,” said Doug Wise, who was for a time Flynn’s top deputy at the DIA . There was one person, however, who McMaster couldn’t get rid of: Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence programs. They also left the impression that, to defend the president against claims he had leveled unsubstantiated charges of wiretapping against his predecessor, Cohen-Watnick had been prepared to attack the actions of NSC officials and of other elements of the intelligence community. (GG-12 is the equivalent of an Army captain in the DIA; Cohen-Watnick’s rank before he left was actually GS-13, equivalent to a major, according to a source familiar with his career). Citing four U.S. officials, the Times later reported that his sources on the intelligence reports were Cohen-Watnick and Michael Ellis, a lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office focused on national security. In post-combat surveys, 94 percent of Soldiers rate the M4 as an effective weapon system. This appears to have been a time at which Cohen-Watnick was at a crossroads. The reports about the Nunes episode suggested to career staffers, perhaps unfairly, that the NSC’s senior director for intelligence was less interested in presenting their views to the president than in imposing the president’s views on them. But in September 2007, he also told a friend that his main goal was working for the CIA. Biotheus is a clinical development stage company treating cancer and autoimmune diseases through next-generation therapeutics. Is he brash and difficult to work with, or modest and brilliant? We are dedicatedly providing ars services to our client from past 15 years with 100% satisfactory positive review. ASCI prides itself on being a leading provider of specialty contracting services in the Mid-Atlantic Region, including Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Maryland. Even Steve Bannon, among the most powerful people in the White House, was removed from the meetings of the NSC Principal’s Committee, where he had been installed early on in the administration. Cohen-Watnick was asked to look at unmasking procedures by a civil servant working in the Situation Room as part of a review, this official claimed, weeks before the Nunes visit to the White House. He was partner and head of the firm's portfolio operations team. Copyright © 2021 General Atlantic Service Company, L.P. All Rights Reserved. I met him a few times. They suggest that this is motivated by his conflict with the CIA. Patient Square Capital hires ex-KKR portfolio operations chief Karr Narula. Records show he registered to vote in 2012 with a Miami address, as a Republican and as a Hispanic male (his mother is Colombian). Cohen-Watnick attended Bethesda Chevy-Chase High School, graduating in 2004. On the night of March 21, House Intelligence chairman Nunes got a call from a source, jumped into another car, and didn’t tell his staff where he was going. In a tweet on March 4, Trump had accused the Obama administration of wiretapping Trump Tower during the election. These and the other officers who served in that position were career intelligence officials with serious credentials, demonstrated maturity, and a wealth of experience.". DESCRIPTION: The M4/M4A1 5.56 mm Carbine is designed for lightness, speed, mobility and firepower. (Cohen-Watnick did, however, intern for then-Senator Joe Biden in high school.). He was notified on August 16, 2016, that he wouldn’t be getting the job. Kalbe Genexine Biologics (“KGBio”) is an Indonesia-based joint venture between Kalbe Farma and Genexine. Whether or not Cohen-Watnick was actually one of Nunes's sources, the public reports tied him to the controversy. That Cohen-Watnick, 31 years old and largely unknown before entering the administration, has become unfireable reveals how important he has become to the Trump White House, where loyalty is prized. He is in the thick of some of the most important policy fights at the White House; he is viewed as an Iran hawk and has been characterized, for instance, as a main proponent of expanding U.S. efforts against Iran-backed militias in Syria. Nunes claimed at one point that his source had been an intelligence official, not White House. Is he Flynn's mole on the council, or does he not even know the deposed national-security adviser all that well? The new national-security adviser, General H.R. And perhaps most important: Now that he has the president’s ear, what will he whisper into it? One person familiar with his career asserted that Cohen-Watnick had met Matt Flynn, Michael Flynn’s son, at “The Farm.” Another, a former senior intelligence official, said he had briefed Flynn at the DIA. And they have a different theory as to why he has retained his job, and why he’s drawn attacks: It’s because, they insist, he’s good at what he does. Cohen-Watnick talked about his goal of becoming a spy “all the time,” this person said. One of the most recent McMaster-related leaks was to the AP last week; sources said McMaster had told foreign officials he disapproves of Trump’s closeness with Russia. But they’re not always unflattering; some leaks have suggested a prominent policy role for the young staffer. Albert is a financial services company that provides financial advice and automated savings guidance to consumers. Just 24 days into his tenure as Donald Trump’s national-security adviser, Michael Flynn was forced to resign, having reportedly misled Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russian officials. Despite his prominent, and apparently quite secure, position in Trump’s NSC, little is known about Cohen-Watnick, who had spent much of his short career as a low-ranking official at the Defense Intelligence Agency. The general came in with a brash approach that rubbed his colleagues the wrong way and eventually led to his being forced out in 2014 by then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike Vickers. In those, he saw “something that made him concerned” and informed John Eisenberg, the NSC legal adviser. One person who knew him at the time said that, together with a friend, Cohen-Watnick set up a table outside the Barnes and Noble in downtown Bethesda in the summer of 2003 to “just sort of argue with people about the Iraq War ... just to get into fights with Bethesda liberals.” A White House official denied this anecdote, saying it was “false.”, “Ezra’s politics are not at all normal for the cultural milieu in which he grew up,” this person said. “I’ve never seen the media [more] united about a topic than around Ezra and that’s a cause of curiosity amongst anyone with some sense of skepticism,” said the White House official who is close to Cohen-Watnick. On March 27, Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking member on HPSCI, called for Nunes to recuse himself. Our portfolio companies are already on a strong growth trajectory — our goal is to enhance it. The Guardian’s story on the firing cited sources describing it as an “act of retaliation” against the CIA for encouraging McMaster to sack Cohen-Watnick, a report unlikely to endear him to his colleagues. But once more, different officials offer flatly contradictory versions of what transpired. McMaster, promptly began clearing out Flynn’s people, among them Dave Cattler, the deputy assistant to the president for regional affairs, Adam Lovinger, a strategic affairs analyst on loan from the Pentagon, and KT McFarland, Flynn’s deputy, who was eased out with the ambassadorship to Singapore. Newsweek reported that Cohen-Watnick entered the Defense Clandestine Service in 2012 and was sent to “The Farm,” the CIA training facility in Virginia, in 2013. Barbara introduced him to Cohen-Watnick; the couple connected the young officer with Flynn, and the two kept in touch over the course of the year. Atlantic Recovery Solutions is top notch certified ars debt Collector Company in New York area. Ask around about Ezra Cohen-Watnick, and people get defensive. Ledeen is a friend of Flynn’s and co-authored the book Field of Fight with him. “That human element has been I think completely lost in all of the coverage of him.”, “He’s very engaging, very personable, he tries to connect with people,” said the former intelligence officer on the NSC. Patricia Hofmeester / Julia Luzgareva / Shutterstock / Defense Intelligence Agency / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic, ohen-Watnick was raised in Chevy Chase, Maryland, Vaccine Refusal Will Come at a Cost—For All of Us, Hasidic, Devout, and Mad as Hell About COVID-19. One colleague of Cohen-Watnick’s said that his last job was three or four ranks higher than the one in which he began. The CIA has traditionally had control over who fills this position, and normally the job is staffed by a more experienced official. Information about him in publicly available sources is scarce. The senior director for intelligence programs on the NSC is a powerful position, designed to coordinate and liaise between the U.S. intelligence community and the White House. In doing so, he blamed “leftwing activist groups” and said the charges against him were “entirely false and politically motivated.”, (Nunes has gone on to claim that he never recused himself from the investigation, and has issued subpoenas relating to the probe. One White House official praised Cohen-Watnick as a "true professional and most importantly he is incredibly loyal to the president and this administration.”. Learn More. Reliance Retail, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, operates an online and offline retail business in three core segments across India: Food & Grocery, Fashion & Lifestyle, and Consumer Electronics. General Atlantic seeks to identify investment themes that are driven by innovation and entrepreneurship and supported by long-term secular growth. Pharvaris is a clinical-stage company focused on the discovery and development of novel oral bradykinin-B2-receptor antagonists for the treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE), a rare and potentially life-threatening genetic condition. As Delivery Manager, supporting Atlantic Shores for the past 2 years, Mr. Cognard seconds the Technical and Delivery Director in planning and designing the Atlantic Shores portfolio, to ensure safe and cost-efficient delivery. Thirty-one-year-old Ezra Cohen-Watnick holds the intelligence portfolio on the National Security Council—but almost everything about him is a mystery. Flynn became a prominent surrogate for the Trump campaign, famously leading a “lock her up” chant at the Republican National Convention, and was even considered as the running mate. KGBio focuses on the in-licensing, clinical development, and manufacturing of biological products, especially in the area of immuno-oncology. Jüsto is a leading vertically-integrated online grocery platform in Mexico. Or maybe it’s because he sits on the fault line of a fractured administration. The story was first reported by The New York Times, and then expanded by other outlets. Narula worked at KKR for 13 years. Yet he hardly comes into sharper focus when you talk to co-workers, friends, and former colleagues. Trump’s election changed everything for Cohen-Watnick, as it did for many people in Washington. But the question of who cleared Nunes onto White House grounds, and why Cohen-Watnick was looking into the material, have never been fully answered. Some insist that Kushner and Bannon were willing to expend capital on behalf of Cohen-Watnick. He’s not a robot or the way he’s been portrayed,” said one of the senior White House officials. Atlantic Mechanical is a Preferred Certified Contractor for Heatcraft, giving our technicians additional skillsets to provide outstanding service to our customers. Zoomin is a leading knowledge and content orchestration platform. The weapon incorporates more than 90 improvements since its inception. The incident snowballed quickly. The next day, Nunes gave a now-infamous press conference at the Capitol in which he described how “the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.” Though the phrase “incidental collection” by definition refers to the communications individuals who are not targets of surveillance, Nunes’s statement was taken by Trump supporters as vindication of the president’s tweet accusing Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower, an incident intelligence chiefs have told Congress never happened. According to the official, this was the extent of Cohen-Watnick’s involvement in the Nunes affair. Our portfolio companies are already on a strong growth trajectory — our goal is to enhance it. We specialize in building demolition, environmental remediation and carpentry services. SPINS is a leading provider of data, analytics and technology for health and wellness-focused consumer packaged goods brands and retailers. “This says much more about Cohen’s political connections than his experience in the intelligence business.". According to one person with direct knowledge of the meeting, the roots of their loyalty to Cohen-Watnick stem from a briefing he delivered during Trump’s first visit to the White House situation room in February, at which Kushner was present as well as Pence. McMaster tried to remove him in March, but President Trump, at the urging of Bannon and Jared Kushner, told McMaster that Cohen-Watnick was staying, as first reported by Politico. “I didn’t know what job he was going to have in the transition. “But the Agency guys were all like ‘Fuck this guy, he’s just here to spy on us for Flynn and the DIA.’”, A White House official said that Cohen-Watnick did not know Flynn at the time he was in Afghanistan but did not dispute that there were “rivalries between CIA and DIA.”. Few higher-ups from the DIA remember him. Coalition is a leading provider of cyber and commercial insurance, combining comprehensive insurance and cybersecurity tools to help businesses manage and mitigate cyber risk. He was the Head of Capital Markets and a Portfolio Manager for GSO Capital Partners, and he sat on the Investment Committee for GSO’s distressed funds and special situations funds. Bannon and Ledeen may be wary of talking about Cohen-Watnick after his first, and thus far only, turn in the national spotlight. "If the incumbent has an effective working relationship with the national-security adviser or even the president directly, the senior director for intelligence has an opportunity to exercise considerable influence on intelligence policy, covert actions, and sensitive collection operations," said Stephen Slick, a former CIA official who held the position during the Bush administration. Our Investments JFLCO’s investment strategy focuses on middle market companies with proven, market-leading engineering / technical capabilities involving specialized products and services where performance is critical McMaster tried to move Cohen to another position within the NSC, his decision was publicly overturned by the president,” Wise said. Others, who supported Trump’s insurgent campaign early on, tend to favor the ideas he advocated on the stump: concern that allies are freeloading, interest in strengthening ties with Russia, and a focus on the threat posed Islamic extremism in nations like Iran. Cernovich has also targeted other McMaster allies in the NSC such as Dina Powell. Those drawn from the ranks of the Republican foreign-policy establishment tend to favor its traditional views: committed to longstanding alliances like NATO, skeptical of Russia, and supportive of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cernovich has cited White House sources repeatedly in his reports, though he has told me that he doesn’t know who his sources are and relies on burner phones to keep in touch with them. Only one picture of him can be found online, a snapshot unearthed by Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen. The Washington Post reported in April that days after McMaster’s effort to remove Cohen-Watnick, the CIA’s liaison to the White House was fired. Cohen-Watnick’s intense approach, this person said, “causes some people to respond negatively rather than saying a-ha, this is a good thing, now we can reprogram.” CIA representatives pushed back on Cohen-Watnick, and the atmosphere was “frustrated.”. “Ezra has consistently provided value, insight, and support at the highest levels of the White House.”, This may be why several White House staffers used the same word to describe Cohen-Watnick: loyal. Centessa Pharmaceuticals is a next-generation biopharmaceutical company that aims to reshape the traditional drug development process, with a subsidiary portfolio supported by a centralized infrastructure, asset-centric R&D model and the Centessa management team. “It’s a very important position and essentially it’s a deep cull,” said a White House colleague who has known Cohen-Watnick for years. “I didn’t know Ezra from Adam,” said one former intelligence officer who is a member of the NSC. According to a senior White House official, the two men had a sit-down meeting the following week in which McMaster acknowledged that he hadn’t been able to do what he wanted to do, and that they would keep things as they are and “see how they go for a while.” That was over four months ago. Cohen-Watnick survived, but he's remained a topic of gossip and a target of leaks—a flashpoint in the ongoing fight over the administration’s foreign policy. Foreign Policy noted that McMaster has become the target of online critics, most notably Mike Cernovich, the pro-Trump activist and blogger. His friend from school says the last time they saw him or heard from him was before the spring semester that year. But even the seemingly straightforward question of how and when they met yields contradictory and conflicting accounts. “This is especially noteworthy when you compare Cohen to some of the individuals who have served in that position, George Tenet, David Shedd, Mary Sturtevant, Stephen Slick, and other very experienced officers were already members of the Senior Intelligence Service when they were appointed. Sky Atlantic is a British pay television channel owned by Sky Group Limited broadcast in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel is primarily dedicated to imported programmes from the United States, and holds the domestic rights to HBO and Showtime dramas, but also broadcast many original Sky productions. We have a solid track record of delivering strategic, practical and impactful support to our portfolio companies. Like most people in this kind of job, Cohen-Watnick is a workaholic, sometimes sleeping on his couch in case he has to respond to something or go somewhere in the middle of the night, the White House colleague who knows him well said. I didn’t realize he was running it at first.”. His spokesman did not respond to requests for an interview for this story.). Was he a central player in the Nunes scandal, or just a bystander? Also in May, Foreign Policy reported that “the knives are out” for McMaster over internal conflicts on Afghanistan policy, with him on one side and Bannon on the other. The story made West Wing senior staff “furious,” according to a senior White House official, who added “if true, a man of honor would resign.”. “Ezra is deeply thoughtful, hard working, and committed to serving the president,” Kushner said, offering a rare on-the-record comment, which is itself a testament to Cohen-Watnick’s importance. Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen reported on Twitter that Cohen-Watnick had done work on Haiti while based out of the Department of Defense’s Miami office. It was Cohen-Watnick’s connection with Michael Flynn that would catapult him into the top ranks of America’s intelligence officials. The leaks have created an atmosphere of suspicion on the NSC, where morale has never been particularly high since the start of the administration. The strong implication of the stories about the incident has been that either Cohen-Watnick, Ellis, or both cleared Nunes onto the campus. Despite that early controversy, Cohen-Watnick retains one of the most consequential intelligence jobs in the nation, and his influence is rising. Cohen-Watnick is listed on an online roster among a group that attended the Penn in D.C. internship program in Washington in 2008, in his case interning with the Office of Naval Intelligence. Some profess not to know him, or ask why anyone would want to write about him. General Atlantic's website uses cookies to improve and personalize your experience. We have a solid track record of delivering strategic, practical and impactful support to our portfolio companies. Mr. Logigian also served on Blackstone’s Capital Markets Committee. McMaster, assuming he’d be allowed to relieve or reassign Cohen-Watnick, had gone so far as to interview Cohen-Watnick’s potential replacement, Linda Weissgold, a veteran CIA officer. According to a third person familiar with the matter, the real story is that Cohen-Watnick actually met Flynn much later, in 2016, at a coffee arranged by Michael Ledeen’s wife Barbara, who Cohen-Watnick knows from growing up outside of Washington. “He’s loyal to the president and he’s made a super impression on everyone that deals with him, me included,” said the former intelligence officer who is now a senior NSC official. After the Assad regime used chemical weapons against civilians in April, for example, Trump ordered strikes against one of their airbases, angering Syria's ally Russia.