All O7- and above are not apolitical; all flag officers in all services must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate at each promotion beyond O6. It's often a rubber stamping process, but it is there. Denial of promotion and individual intervention is relatively frequent.

Technically all officers also have this treatment but Senate oversight and intervention is much lower, and the batches are much bigger.

> If the announcement came from, say, Major General Mark W. Westergren, USAF, Deputy Chief NSA/CSS, it would be more credible. He's not a political appointee

I am aware of no commonly used definition of "political appointee" that does not include (among others) all officers of government that go through the appointment-by-the-President-and-confirmation-by-the-Senate process that applies to -- as well as to officials that get more media attention for this process -- all military officers (and with notably more personal attention in the process to 1-star and higher ranks -- generals and admirals.)

Why would that make a difference? If the US government is so brazen to force a public official to lie about this, they would make him lie about it, too.

(There's almost no chance there is a conspiracy here. I think it is probably Russia.)