Thread by @MiekeEoyang

Last night, the nation lost a well respected intelligence official in the resignation of Deputy DNI Sue Gordon. Combined with the resignation of DNI Dan Coats, we're seeing a real sea change in ODNI leadership.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

Trump named Joe Maguire, the head of NCTC, as the acting ODNI.

Maguire's a career naval officer, and from what I can tell, not a Trumpist, so that's a net positive.

In a normal administration, this would be a fine pick, but not a great one, and I'll explain.

The intelligence community need people who value objective intelligence, and military officers do that.

You go to battle on bad intelligence, and your people pay the consequences. They don't want politicized intelligence. That's a positive.

But the ODNI isn't actually an intelligence agency in a traditional sense. It's an analysis and policy coordinating body.

And many of the entities to be coordinated are civilian agencies with strong points of view *cough CIA*.

So military officers who are used to chain of command and ordering people around, don't always thrive in a coordinating body where other people have a vote and don't have to obey your orders.

Plus, the ODNI doesn't have budget authority to compel other agencies.

So giving direction and expecting people to jump doesn't work. See e.g. DNI Blair's fight over the ODNI Rep role, which he lost.

And DNI McConnell, who also attempted to be directive, but lost some of those fights.

Maguire, OTOH, has a leg up on them, from running NCTC, which is also a coordinating, not directive body.

So on the plus side for Maguire:

1) career military officer
2) values objective intelligence
3) previously served in a coordinating body.

In this environment, absent other new info, I'll take it.

-30-