Drama at Brookings to Pave Way for Biden Role?

Here is more from Politico:

Board members of the Brookings Institution recently received an anonymous email titled “Brookings Leadership Concerns” that called for a “no confidence” vote on Brookings president Cecilia Rouse, according to an email sent by the board chairs and obtained by Daniel.

— It also noted that a petition asking for the same action had been posted on Change.org but was quickly taken down. “As of now there have been no news reports, or anything public as far as we can determine,” Brookings co-chairs Glenn Hutchins and Suzanne Nora Johnson wrote in the email, noting they were “monitoring the situation closely” and would discuss the matter at their next board meeting. Sadly, PI has been unable to obtain the initial email detailing the concerns about Rouse, but one board member said she was “not the warmest and cuddliest person in the world so I’m sure she has rubbed some people the wrong way.”

— The head of fundraising, Tamara O’Neil, also quietly left the think tank over the summer. O’Neil had worked as a VP and chief development officer at Brookings for a little over two years before departing in late July, according to her LinkedIn profile; a departure memo from Rouse obtained by PI said that O’Neil and Brookings had “parted ways,” thanking her for her service. She is now founder and CEO of fundraising firm Capital Catalyst Solutions.

— A former Brookings employee who had worked with O’Neil said that she had told them that she wasn’t happy at the organization in the months before she left and that her relationship with Rouse was not strong. The person also said that people who worked for O’Neil had complained about the strength of her management style to colleagues throughout most of her tenure “and got particularly bad this year.”

 

This week, President Biden gave a major speech at Brookings, likely his last think tank speech as US president.  Even if Dr. Rouse is eventually axed from Brookings, it is highly unlikely Biden would become its new president.

Additional reporting from Politico on Dec. 19 notes that Rouse was accused, among other things, of foisting a return-to-office policy on employees without proper consultations and being dismissive toward colleagues.

Woman Who Frequented US Think Tanks Arrested for Ties to Russian Intelligence

Here is more from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

A Russian national, Nomma Zarubina, has been arrested on possible charges of providing false information to U.S. law enforcement and maintaining connections with Russian intelligence services, linking her to another suspected spy who fled the United States while being pursued by authorities.

According to FBI allegations presented in a New York Southern District Court hearing in late November, Zarubina was recruited by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2020 and operated under the codename "Alyssa."

She allegedly worked to build a network of contacts among journalists and experts while carrying out tasks for an FSB officer from her native city of Tomsk in Siberia.

 

Zarubina visited many US think tanks, and she was an "International Fellow" at the Abshire-Inamori Leadership Academy (AILA) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the fall of 2022.

People pay to join this 5-day program, with the current tuition at $5,000.

Since 2003, CSIS has had more than 400 AILA International Fellows from 62 countries.

One person on X said that the story of Zarubina is "straight out of Showtime's Homeland Season 7 when the Russians planted a female FSB agent inside an NGO who seduces the President's chief of staff and recruits a former FBI agent in an active measures plot to weaken and remove the American President."