Special Report: Inside a Trump-era purge of military scientists at a legendary think tank

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-science-specialreport-idUSKCN1UP15P

By Charles Levinson
Reuters.com
July 30, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) - They’re members of a prestigious academic panel with 
top-secret clearances who’ve advised the Pentagon on some of America’s most 
vexing national security issues since the Cold War. Over 60 years, they’ve won 
11 Nobel prizes and conducted hundreds of government studies.

The advisory group, known as Jason, is a team of some 60 of America’s top 
physicists and scientists who spend each summer in La Jolla, California, 
conducting studies commissioned by the Pentagon and other U.S. government 
agencies.

On March 28, Trump appointee Michael Griffin – the Pentagon’s chief technology 
officer – unexpectedly moved to terminate the group.

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, 
objected, telling Griffin’s office the scientists were crucial for keeping 
America’s nuclear stockpile secure, according to an NNSA official and others 
affiliated with the Jason program. Gordon-Hagerty’s agency offered to take 
responsibility for the program. She only needed Griffin’s signature to make it 
happen.

Griffin refused.

[...]

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