Epstein Secrets

am headed by Richard “Rick” Ledgett, who was then director of the NSA’s Threat Opera- tions Center at the NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Ledgett was the logical choice to head the damage assessment inves- tigation because the center’s regional branch in Hawaii was under his command. Ledgett fl

n camera in his Hong Kong interview in June 2013 that NSA investi- gators would have “a heart attack” when they discovered the extent of the breach. Ledgett, the NSA official who had conducted the damage assess- ment, while not having a heart attack, confirmed that Snowden had taken a massive number of do

know they were gone.” However, he was not among the limited number of individuals at the center who had access to these documents. Both the NSA’s and Booz Allen’s employment records showed that Snowden had not yet completed his requisite on-the-job training when he carried out the theft. Consequently, he had no

ell was transferring files held at Fort Meade to backup computers in Hawaii. He “was moving copies of that data there for them,” said Deputy Director Ledgett, “which was perfect cover for stealing the [NSA] data” through the fall and winter of 2012. The security mea- sures at the Hawaii base presented no o

o the NSA’s king- dom of global surveillance. Booz Allen held those keys. “He targeted my company because we enjoy more access than other companies,” Booz Allen’s vice-chairman Michael McConnell said with the bene- fit of hindsight. As a result of the theft, he appraised, “an entire gen- eration of intelligence

position since the top- secret unit was responsible for discovering and countering the threats posed by Chinese, Russian and other adversary nations. Ledgett was also the logical choice to head the damage assessment investigation since the Center’s regional branch in Hawaii was from where highly-sensitive

were gone,” but, as it turned out, he was not among the limited number of individuals at the Center who had access to these documents, The NSA’s and Booz Allen’s employment records showed that Snowden had not yet completed his requisite on-the- job training at the National Threat Operations Center in Hawaii wh