Backstory: How HUMINT started and highlights as the year ends

From hospital thoughts to reports from Ukraine, Qatar, and the intelligence chessboard around Washington, D.C. in 2024.

Christmastime in 2023 at a hospital in Connecticut. (Sasha Ingber)

A year ago yesterday, I was jumping on a train to Connecticut. My mom had been rushed to the hospital, prematurely released, then fell walking into the house and got rushed to a different hospital. Things were not going well. So I left my life in D.C., where I was the national security correspondent for a national TV network, and spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and all the other holidays and normal days for weeks to come in hospitals. I sat by her bed, hoping that she would come back from the depths of delirium that had suddenly swallowed her.

In between interrogating doctors and nurses, I’d watch the news on TVs installed way too high on the walls: Ukraine, Israel, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hiding his hospitalization… stories that I could have been telling. Sitting in my pain on those pleather chairs, I knew I was where I needed to be. But I also began to wonder about what it would look like to start some journalistic endeavor of my own. Maybe even from a hospital room. It was one of those moments where life forces you to see its terrifyingly capricious nature.

My mother pulled through. And when I was finally able to return to Washington, my TV network was struggling. After years of dogged, groundbreaking reporting, I was laid off. And I chose to cast aside the practicalities and self-limiting beliefs that guided me into adulthood. I finally gave myself permission to do something that I had never allowed, especially in an expensive city powered by competition and connection — I gave myself permission to build my dream.

This past spring, I launched HUMINT, a space where I linger in the often overlooked emotions that course through the intelligence and national security community. So far, more than 4,000 people are paying attention. If you’re a newcomer or joined me back in May, here are the highlights from HUMINT’s first seven months in our unruly world:

The story that started it all: Pavel Butorin opened up to me about the struggle to free his wife, Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S. journalist imprisoned in Russia on spurious charges. Her case wasn’t receiving enough media attention. Fortunately, months later, she was released in the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War. (And I also explored how former detainees put their lives back together again, after a quick jaunt to Doha for discussions on hostage negotiations.)

On the ground in Ukraine: This summer, I got a rare glimpse into Ukraine’s covert action against Russia, traveled to a secret military base where police officers were trained for the front, and walked the rubble of Kyiv’s largest children’s hospital after a particularly cruel strike. (Then in the fall, I broke some news on North Korean troops deploying to Russia’s Kursk region and interviewed a defector from North Korea.)

Remembering a veteran: For the three-year anniversary of Afghanistan’s collapse, I wrote a letter to a veteran I had interviewed. It was 2021 and former Navy Corpsman Michael McCarthy had described his struggle to evacuate two Afghan interpreters who had served in the 2/7, known as the “Forgotten Battalion.” As the Taliban swept through Afghanistan, Mike killed himself in his California apartment.

China, anyone? Of all my reporting, readers really liked how I exposed the lavish building in D.C. where China’s spies sleep. Former senior FBI agents described the sort of intelligence officers who would be living there and how counterintelligence agents would be focusing on the residence. Readers also gravitated to my reporting on the FBI’s struggles to track down and recruit Chinese spies over the years — incompetence or apathy mixed with bureaucracy, resource pressure, and some racism.

Grim Israel: As Benjamin Netanyahu deprioritized hostages to wage a war on Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, I wrote about his oldest brother, who lost his life trying to save hostages. (Also was told that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed as he was trying to reach Egypt.)

Keeping up with the Kurds and our election: You think we have drama? Try the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq and their spy games with… each other. A coup, an assassination, and mass defections among the intelligence agencies of the major political parties. This very niche report had a major takeaway during our election season — that tribalism and deep party divides weaken a country/region against real adversaries. (My election coverage also included Russia’s long history of using Americans to spread disinformation and the U.S. intel community’s first press briefing on the agency tasked with alerting the country to foreign interference.)

My own news: The year ended with me announcing a new, part-time gig with the International Spy Museum, as host of their intelligence podcast, SpyCast.

I’m not sure what the new year will bring. There will be highs and there will be lows for all of us. But they will be accompanied by unparalleled stories that show the inner workings of the U.S. intelligence apparatus and the vulnerabilities of humans in the machine. Happy holidays, thanks for reading, and see you in ‘25.