Director of National Intelligence

Founding

Before the DNI was formally established, the head of the United States Intelligence Community was the director of central intelligence (DCI), who concurrently served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The 9/11 Commission recommended establishing the DNI position in its 9/11 Commission Report, not released until July 22, 2004, as it had identified major intelligence failures that called into question how well the intelligence community was able to protect U.S. interests against foreign terrorist attacks.

Senators Dianne Feinstein, Jay Rockefeller and Bob Graham introduced S. 2645 on June 19, 2002, to create the position of Director of National Intelligence. Other similar legislation soon followed. After considerable debate on the scope of the DNI's powers and authorities, the United States Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 by votes of 336–75 in the House of Representatives, and 89–2 in the Senate. President George Bush signed the bill into law on December 17, 2004. Among other things, the law established the DNI position as the designated leader of the United States Intelligence Community and prohibited the DNI from serving as the CIA director or the head of any other intelligence community element at the same time. In addition, the law required the CIA director to report their agency's activities to the DNI.

Critics say compromises during the bill's crafting led to the establishment of a DNI whose powers are too weak to adequately lead, manage and improve the performance of the intelligence community. In particular, the law left the United States Department of Defense in charge of the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

Under 50 U.S.C. § 3026, "under ordinary circumstances, it is desirable" that either the director or the principal deputy director of national intelligence be an active-duty commissioned officer in the armed forces or have training or experience in military intelligence activities and requirements. Only one of the two positions can be held by a military officer at any given time. The statute does not specify what rank the commissioned officer will hold during their tenure in either position.

Appointments

The first director of national intelligence was former U.S. ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte who was appointed on February 17, 2005, by President George W. Bush, subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate. It was reported that President Bush's first choice for DNI was former director of central intelligence Robert M. Gates, who was serving as president of Texas A&M University, but who declined the offer. Negroponte was confirmed by a Senate vote of 98–2 on April 21, 2005, and he was sworn in by President Bush the same day.

On February 13, 2007, Mike McConnell became the second director of national intelligence, after Negroponte was appointed Deputy Secretary of State. Donald M. Kerr was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence on October 4, 2007, and sworn in on October 9, 2007. Kerr, from Virginia, was previously the director of the National Reconnaissance Office and the deputy director for science and technology at the CIA before that. Earlier in his career, he was an assistant director at the FBI, in charge of their Laboratory Division from 1997 to 2001.

On January 29, 2009, retired Navy admiral Dennis C. Blair became the third DNI on after being nominated by newly inaugurated President Barack Obama. President Obama dismissed Blair whose resignation became effective May 28, 2010.

On July 20, 2010, President Barack Obama nominated retired Air Force lieutenant general James Clapper as the fourth DNI. Clapper was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 5, and replaced acting director David C. Gompert.

The fifth DNI, Dan Coats, the sixth DNI, John Ratcliffe, and acting DNIs Joseph Maguire, Richard Grenell and Lora Shiao, all served between March 16, 2017, and January 21, 2021, during the first administration of President Donald Trump.

The seventh DNI is Avril Haines, who took office on January 21, 2021. The first woman to hold the office, she was nominated by President-elect Joe Biden on November 23, 2020 and confirmed by the Senate on January 20, 2021. She resigned January 20, 2025 at the conclusion of Joe Biden's term in office.

On November 13, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Army Reserve lieutenant colonel Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence upon returning to the presidency in January 2025. Gabbard was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 12, 2025, replacing acting director Lora Shiao. With this appointment, she became the first female military combat veteran to serve as DNI, the first Pacific Islander American and first Hindu American in this position as well, to hold a Cabinet-level position.

Website issues

Declan McCullagh at News.com wrote on August 24, 2007, that the DNI site was configured to prevent search engines from indexing pages at DNI.gov. This effectively made the DNI website invisible to all search engines and in turn, any search queries. Ross Feinstein, Spokesman for the DNI, said this configuration was removed as of September 3, 2007. "We're not even sure how [the robots.txt file] got there." On September 7, McCullagh reported that the DNI appeared to be allowing search engine crawling again.

Reform initiatives

In September 2007, the Office of the DNI released "Intelligence Community 100 Day & 500 Day Plans for Integration & Collaboration". These plans include a series of initiatives designed to build the foundation for increased cooperation and reform of the U.S. Intelligence Community.