Intel management

Trump's intel power play spooks the spooks

President Donald Trump’s nomination of Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe to serve as the nation’s intel chief has led to some apprehension within the intelligence community, which has only grudgingly come to accept the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as a force for good.

The office, established in 2004 to better coordinate the flow of information between agencies after the intelligence failures that led up to 9/11, has been most effective as a day-to-day manager focusing on bureaucratic and budgeting issues, intel veterans said — giving the agencies political top cover and more freedom to focus on their core missions.

But with a grip on the President’s Daily Brief, broad discretion over the agencies’ responsiveness to Congress, and responsibility for intelligence community whistleblowing and source protection, the DNI can easily veer into the political and revive the kind of friction that plagued its relationship with the intelligence community in its early days.