The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the principal forum used by the president of the United States for consideration of national security,military,and foreign policy matters. Based in the White House,it is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States,and composed of senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials.
The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is a senior cabinet-level United States government official,required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to serve as executive head of the United States Intelligence Community (IC) and to direct and oversee the National Intelligence Program (NIP). All IC agencies report directly to the DNI. The DNI also serves,upon invitation,as an advisor to the president of the United States,the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council on all intelligence matters. The DNI,supported by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI),produces the President's Daily Brief (PDB),a classified document including intelligence from all IC agencies,handed each morning to the president of the United States.
The President's Daily Brief,sometimes referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin,is a top-secret document produced and given each morning to the president of the United States;it is also distributed to a small number of top-level US officials who are approved by the president. It includes highly classified intelligence analysis,information about covert operations,and reports from the most sensitive US sources or those shared by allied intelligence agencies. At the discretion of the president,the PDB may also be provided to the president-elect of the United States,between election day and inauguration,and to former presidents on request.
Jamie S. Gorelick is an American lawyer who served as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States from 1994 to 1997,during the Clinton administration. She has been a partner at WilmerHale since 2003 and has served on the board of directors of Amazon since February 2012.
Leon Edward Panetta is an American politician and government official who has served under several Democratic administrations as Secretary of Defense (2011–2013),director of the CIA (2009–2011),White House Chief of Staff (1994–1997),director of the Office of Management and Budget (1993–1994),and as a U.S. Representative from California (1977–1993).
Robert Michael Gates is an American intelligence analyst and university president who served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and was retained by President Barack Obama. Gates began his career serving as an officer in the United States Air Force but was quickly recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Gates served for twenty-six years in the CIA and at the National Security Council,and was director of central intelligence under President George H. W. Bush from 1991 to 1993. After leaving the CIA,Gates became president of Texas A&M University and was a member of several corporate boards. Gates served as a member of the Iraq Study Group,the bipartisan commission co-chaired by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton that studied the lessons of the Iraq War.
The Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DD/CIA) is a statutory office and the second-highest official of the Central Intelligence Agency. The DD/CIA assists the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) and is authorized to exercise the powers of the D/CIA when the director's position is vacant or in the director's absence or disability.
Robert Michael Kimmitt was United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush. He was nominated by President Bush on June 29,2005. The United States Senate unanimously confirmed him on July 29,2005,and he was sworn into office on August 16,2005. Kimmitt served through the end of the Bush administration,leaving office on January 20,2009.
John Owen Brennan is a former American intelligence officer who served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from March 2013 to January 2017. He served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama,with the title Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism,and Assistant to the President. Previously,he advised Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 election campaign and presidential transition.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has coordinated efforts by American lawyers to handle the habeas corpus,and other legal appeals,of several hundred of the Guantanamo detainees.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Bagram,Guantanamo Bay,Abu Ghraib,and Bucharest—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating,binding in contorted stress positions,hooding,subjection to deafening noise,sleep disruption,sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination,deprivation of food,drink,and medical care for wounds,as well as waterboarding,walling,sexual humiliation,rape,sexual assault,subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold,and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures,to which he himself was subjected,were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white room torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration","rectal fluid resuscitation",and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees,there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children,and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
Michael Joseph Morell is an American former career intelligence analyst. He served as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2010 to 2013 and twice as its acting director,first in 2011 and then from 2012 to 2013. He also serves as a professor at the George Mason University - Schar School of Policy and Government.
Stuart A. Levey was the first Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence within the United States Department of the Treasury. He was sworn in on July 21,2004 as a political appointee of President George W. Bush. President Barack Obama asked Levey to remain in his position and Levey was one of only a small number of Senate-confirmed Bush appointees who served in the Obama Administration. After leaving the government,Levey joined the private sector as chief legal officer of HSBC,CEO of Diem Association and chief legal officer of Oracle.
David William Ogden,known professionally as David W. Ogden is an American lawyer who served as the deputy attorney general of the United States. An American lawyer,Ogden was also a high-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice and the United States Department of Defense during the administration of President Bill Clinton. He is a nationally recognized litigator and counselor in the Washington,DC.,office of the law firm WilmerHale,LLP.
Neal Steven Wolin is the CEO of the corporate advisory firm Brunswick Group,an equity partner of Data Collective,a board partner of Social Capital,and a limited partner advisor of Nyca Partners. He was the longest-serving Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and also served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury in early 2013.
Stephen Woolman Preston is an American lawyer who served in the administrations of presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
John Anthony Rizzo was an American attorney who worked as a lawyer in the Central Intelligence Agency for 34 years. He was the deputy counsel or acting general counsel of the CIA for the first nine years of the War on Terror,during which the CIA held dozens of detainees in black site prisons around the globe.
Avril Danica Haines is an American lawyer and senior government official who serves as the director of national intelligence in the Biden administration. She is the first woman to serve in this role. Haines previously served as Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Obama administration. Prior to her appointment to the CIA,she served as Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs in the Office of White House Counsel.
Ezra Cohen,also known as Ezra Cohen-Watnick,is an American intelligence official who served as the acting under secretary of defense for intelligence during the Trump Administration. He previously served as the acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict,national security adviser to the United States attorney general and as a former senior director for intelligence programs for the United States National Security Council (NSC).
This is a chronology of significant events in 2016 and 2017 related to the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies during the Trump presidential transition and the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016,this article begins on November 8 and ends with Donald Trump and Mike Pence being sworn into office on January 20,2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2017,the first and second halves of 2018,the first and second halves of 2019,2020,and 2021.
