Professor Lester’s views are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her University, the Department of Defense, or any other arm of the U.S. government.

Vital Interests: Thank you for participating in the Vital Interests forum. Let's go back in time and think about how the notion of the intelligence community, the “deep state” as it is often called, evolved during the last 10 to 20 years in the United States. Certainly, the Cold War was an “us against them” era with the Russian spy cartoon characters of Boris and Natasha plotting nefarious activities that were thwarted by the heroic Rocky and Bullwinkle. What are the realities that led up to the American intelligence apparatus we have today?

Genevieve Lester:  I think this is an excellent question and a good framework for what we're talking about today. Obviously, the deep state concept is a very politicized one. The fact about the intelligence community today is that it consists of seventeen bureaucracies, each charged with national security responsibilities in support of their individual customers. Just to take a step back from that, at the end of the Cold War, as you say, we had Boris and Natasha and a black and white bifurcated world of the good and the bad from our point of view.

After the Cold War, however, there was a loss of purpose, I would argue, in the intelligence community. There was some sense of hubris at having “defeated” communism which ironically contributed to the uncertainty about what the future focus of intelligence activities should be. 

Not that they lost ground. But there was concern about what the current goal was. What were the current threats? How were we to frame this? How were we -  the United States and its intelligence community - to think about the post Soviet world? Obviously, this uncertainty, this level of ambiguity shifted drastically after 9/11. For our current discussion and current issues, I think that the post 9/11 intelligence community is the most relevant. 9/11 was an exogenous shock; terrorist attacks really forced the change. The focus became counterterrorism.

At that point, intelligence agencies shifted their direction from a focus on the peer state threat --what had been the Soviet Union --  to non-state terrorist entities. The National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) was created to focus particularly on that issue, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created to coordinate intelligence operations across a spectrum of agencies. One of the arguments about 9/11 had been that the attacks were able to happen because there was a “failure to connect the dots.” We've all heard this a thousand times. What that really means is that there was a failure to engage, a failure to communicate about the right issues in a timely fashion.

As is the trend in bureaucratic reorganizations, all efforts were directed to fix that particular failure. The result was an enormous reorganization and refocus of government intelligence functions and reporting. The Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002, and the Intelligence Reform And Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was passed, which, as I have mentioned, created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, among other things.

We see a couple of different things happening here. You see the reorganization of the intelligence community and the installation of these new roles, but you also see a broadening of what is considered acceptable behavior. Suddenly policing powers were broadened. There were different things that were allowed that had not been allowed before, such as a tighter integration of law enforcement and intelligence. Prior to that point, there had been a pretty distinctive “wall” between those two roles and suddenly, that wall was dropped down, so then intelligence information could be used more broadly in law enforcement cases.

We see basically a typical pattern for a change in the intelligence community. We have a crisis or a scandal for example. For example, you have Watergate, and you see a tightening of the intelligence community, a tightening of the national security apparatus in terms of greater restrictions, and the creation of more legislation to keep these institutions accountable. On the other hand, when you see, for example, what seems to be a failure, you see a broadening in intelligence failures. They didn't have enough power, they didn't have enough authority, so let's broaden that role. That's exactly what happened post 9/11.

VI: When you talk about scandals and distrust of the government, it wasn’t just  Watergate but also the Church Committee and the Iran-Contra scandal that shook up the intelligence community as well, didn't it?

Genevieve Lester: Yes, absolutely. I think that the Church Committee was the most shocking because, thinking back to that period of time, 1975, there really was not much awareness of what intelligence does, what the function is, who those people are. I would argue that in combination with that, there was an acceptance of the intelligence mission and just a greater sense of government legitimacy in the post-war era. Things came out of the thinking that we won the war. Families were feeling secure as they moved into the growing middle-class.

Then you hit the '70s and the unrest regarding the Vietnam War and the Watergate episode which led to the resignation of President Nixon. In 1975 the Church Committee hearings (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities), like the Watergate hearings, were televised and brought into public view actions by the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and the IRS that had never been put before the public before. The investigations revealed a secret world of  government spying on American citizens, assassination attempts on foreign leaders, and covert actions to overthrow foreign governments. There are a lot of different ways people characterize that year - The Year of intelligence, the Year of Scandal - a lot of different things that had been going on suddenly were brought to the public for the first time.

I think that we underestimate the impact of the Church Committee because we are, in this current environment, inundated with information 24/7 from so many different channels. By channels, I mean, not  just TV channels but social media, blogs, tweets and a plethora of other information sources. We don't think about the shock factor that the American public experienced when watching the testimony of what was happening in their name. Assassinations and overthrowing governments were not part of what the United States stood for. What was the government up to? It was shocking.

VI: The Church Committee resulted in calls for more oversight and accountability which led to the passing in 1978 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Do people look back and say, well, actually that was not a good thing, that reining in the government's ability to do whatever they wanted actually caused the creation of what's called the “Wall” and therefore, prevented us from really understanding the forces that brought about 9/11?

Geneviere Lester: That is a prevailing argument. The argument goes something like this, especially when you're dealing with terrorists, that intelligence agencies were operating with our hands handcuffed behind our backs because we were constrained by legal structures. Whereas the terrorists were not constrained in that similar fashion.

I would argue, which is no surprise, that the development of oversight institutions is a very positive thing because it allows information to flow better. In a very idealized state, you could see that good collaboration between oversight institutions in the intelligence community could lead to better work because you've got support from your overseers. If one wants to put it more negatively, “blame-sharing” occurs. For example, you will sometimes hear from intelligence officers that they want to brief Congress but Congress doesn't want to hear it.

VI: An interesting point you make about intelligence that is collected, analyzed and then presented, is that it is for the Executive branch - that the Executive branch owns the intelligence and other agencies are allowed to “borrow” it. How does that impact how important intelligence is disseminated?

Genevieve Lester: That argument is really about the executive branch as a whole. The entire intelligence community supports the Executive branch and the consumers within it. When I say consumers, obviously, consumer number one is the President of the United States. You have an array of other agencies that also rely on intelligence information to function and we don't always think about them. For example, the State Department has a small unit, very effective, INR, [Bureau of] Intelligence and Research. Treasury has another small intelligence unit. You see in the military also, each branch has their intelligence element, which supports the particular needs of that consumer.

The senior decision-making in the National Security Council, for example, is supported by intelligence information from all of these other agencies that I'm talking about. When I say that it is lent to the other branches, I am saying that intelligence is basically an executive function. Intelligence is lent to Congress, for example, in the context of Congress as overseer. We could think about Congress in a couple of different ways. One is just as fulfilling their oversight duties or you can think of Congress as another consumer because they also are indeed basing some of their decision-making on intelligence information.

The original statement that it was lent to other branches of government is, I think, still fair. I think that the other branches don't have the complete visibility that the Executive branch has. That really affects how intelligence can be used effectively. Intelligence can be used if you - to flip around what I said just a few seconds ago about how the Congress at times  doesn't want to hear it - one could also say from the other perspective, that Congress is forced to ask the “right” questions in order to get the information they need. This is another piece of borrowing. 

Congress does not have full access to intelligence. They can bring in briefers but they have to ask the right questions because the amount of information out there in the intelligence community is so enormous that they're not going to have visibility on everything. These oversight committees are quite small and they are limited. It's basically their staff capability because the principals are not going to have time to fully understand all that is going on in the intelligence world. Plus, it is increasingly technical.

I've argued several times in terms of the effectiveness of oversight, that it is one thing to understand a paramilitary campaign in a foreign country; it's a very different thing to understand the technicalities of a satellite, for example, from the National Reconnaissance Organization. There's a limit on how much the individuals charged with oversight can actually know at any one time and there's a limit on the expertise that is available.

VI: Another aspect of the executive branch owning the intelligence raises another question. Does the Executive have an obligation to share with Congress and others all relevant intelligence agencies and departments? For example, after the Soleimani assassination, people had to ask many different questions about that particular Executive action and they were given lots of different answers. Is there an obligation for the Executive branch to convey facts to others? Can the Executive branch, for natural security reasons, restrict key information from the oversight of Congress?

Genevieve Lester: That's a very interesting question and I think that would really vary depending on whom you ask. Another version of that question is how much information is required? I would argue based on the Constitution, that yes, the Congress is charged with oversight and therefore the information Congress requires to do its duty is expected to be provided to its members. On the other hand, you see over the course of time, in terms of the congressional oversight committees, a narrowing of the information provided.

You see, for example, as you had mentioned already, that there are the full congressional oversight committees, House and Senate, but you can also bring very sensitive matters to the Gang of Eight, the senior leadership in both chambers and the senior leadership in both committees. If it gets even more sensitive, you can bring it down to the Gang of Four. What you can see here is that while the concept of accountability and oversight is important, built into the Constitution and into these institutions that have developed over time, the scope has lessened. 

I'm not necessarily saying this is a devious or malicious thing. It's just been the way it has developed in tandem with claims it has made for national security purposes. The case of Soleimani, I think, is somewhat different because the timing of the decision is unclear. I believe the story has changed significantly over the course of time but there are stories about President Trump informing the members of his club in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, about the strike prior to informing Congress. That, to me, is a process foul. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. It may be apocryphal.

VI: However, it is symbolic of how this administration regards intelligence.

Genevieve Lester: Well, exactly. There is an expressed disinterest, even distrust, by the Trump administration in information provided by the intelligence community, and any  congressional oversight of how the administration handles intelligence.

VI: Another aspect of the Executive using intelligence in questionable matters that are not divulged is that of the phenomenon of whistleblowers and leaks. The most famous one, of course, was Edward Snowden, and the revelations about NSA surveillance activities. More recently there was the Ukraine situation that led to impeachment of President Trump. What is that role of a whistleblower? How does that play into this whole picture of intelligence management?

Genevieve Lester: You know the saying - one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Well, I think you could say the same thing in terms of the whistleblowing role. One man's whistleblower is another man's traitor, as is commonly said. Snowden, to some is a hero, and to others, should be executed. I’ve put that a little bit strongly, but I think that views tend to come down on both sides. I think that we should consider both the media and whistleblowers as other streams of oversight--within limits.

A whistleblower is a person who's gone through the normal process to inform leadership of a perceived problem or security lapse. A leaker, whatever their motives, is a person who has not. In the case of the Ukraine telephone call, the whistleblower seems to have followed procedures correctly. How that came to be framed--all of that comes down to the question of, "Did the system work?" I would argue that it did.

Information was passed to the appropriate people in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, it was passed to Congress--with a small hiccup when it was not passed immediately to Congress--but I think you can say that that worked. What we see now, however, is the politicization of this particular issue; it is a whole other beast because you see retaliation happening against these individuals who came forward. As we've all talked about, the defendants, Lt Col. Vindman for example, later dismissed from the NSC, were forced by subpoena to testify.

I think in this current environment, we are looking at a very different shape of whistleblowing. We're looking at the threat of retaliation. The intelligence community came a little bit late to protection for whistleblowers, but they are there. You see this administration breaking through those limits. We can probably agree, breaking through institutions is a characteristic of this administration. I think the whistleblower role is strong in terms of its effectiveness in getting the word out. We found out about the Ukraine situation through this whistleblower.

But now, if the administration continues, and particularly the President continues to retaliate directly at these individuals and choose the ones who should be removed, or have nominations pulled because individuals testified, we're seeing a whole different world, and I think that we'll see that have a huge chilling effect on whistleblowing going forward.

VI:  Let's discuss the developing partisanship impact on the intelligence world. The intelligence Community, up until the current days, was supposed to consist of non-political actors. There's the Hatch Act that prohibits federal employees from participating in certain partisan activities. Many in the Intelligence Community are in the military and are also expected to act in a nonpartisan manner. Do you see that norm eroding?  Are there now political points of view that are shaping attitudes in the intelligence community?

Genevieve Lester: This could be a rather Pollyanna view of the whole situation--by the way, I'm also bound by the Hatch Act--but I don’t see politics taking hold in the office. For example, I don’t think your regular analyst is politicized. I don't think that politicization is swaying objective analysis or reporting of information through the usual channels within these bureaucracies. Where we are seeing politics having an impact, and I think an increasing impact, is at the very top levels. As you say, the Intelligence Community and the military are both expected to be apolitical and objective in their behavior.

Over the course of the last few years, we've seen, however, General Officers being more political. We've seen, for example, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence become very politicized. When former Director Coats stepped down after a lengthy period of tension with the President, we saw politics impact that role to an alarming degree. The Director of National Intelligence is supposed to unite the intelligence community and provide a conduit of objective analysis to the president, his first customer.

When I see what's happening now, for example, when Ambassador Grenell, who is quite partisan and has a fairly weak intelligence background, is placed as the acting DNI while Mr. Ratcliffe is nominated to be the permanent DNI, it raises alarm bells for me. Because I see the role of the DNI shifting away from its post 9/11 purpose which was to unite; to connect these dots; to create a firm voice for the Intelligence Community; and to provide a recognized and respected authority, who will convey information to the president that he needs to know, but may not be receptive to hearing. 

And then there is the problem of retaliation currently, for example, when acting DNI Maguire was reportedly fired because his subordinate informed Congress that there could be election interference from the Russians. Well, most of us expect that that is happening, so that is not news. Putting a political spin on that information puts a chilling effect on how information is conveyed, and that is a huge national security threat.

VI:  Do you see these effects impacting the ability of the Intelligence Community to identify and consider threats to the United States, which is certainly their primary responsibility? The Intelligence Community seems to be at odds with the Trump administration’s position on threats from North Korea, from China, from Russia, from Iran. What is the impact of these, often public, differing views?

Genevieve Lester: What I feel is that the analysts will be continuing to do their analytical work and they will continue to assess these threats. They will continue to gather information and intelligence, both open and secret, on different actors and they will continue to make their analyses as they're trained to do, objectively or as objectively as possible. Where I see a potential for a vulnerability is in the transmission of that information and that analysis to decision-makers. Because it's the decision-makers, particularly in the case of political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president, who will receive this information and they will be basing their decisions on it. That's where I feel the politics of all of this will have an impact.

For example, if you are reporting to Congress that there could be election interference and then you see your senior get fired over this or removed, you are not going to feel comfortable conveying that information in the future. This isn't really so much of an analytic problem as I think a dissemination problem and a decision-making problem. The community continues to do its work. They're there 24/7. I'm fairly firm in my conviction that they're trying to maintain their tradecraft standards. That's not where I find concern. My concern is how this information gets used and spun, or not used by decision-makers in the current environment.

VI: You have confidence that the individuals in the Intelligence Community are doing good work. But don't you have now very politicized agencies? For example  the State Department has its own intelligence-gathering function. However under Secretary of State Pompeo a number of high level people have left, and others have been asked to leave for what seems to be political loyalty reasons.  Can the State Department intelligence unit function in the interest of the country or is it tasked with doing work for the Trump administration mandates? The investigations in Ukraine come to mind.

Geneviere Lester: The intelligence units are doing work for the country without question.

VI: That's good to hear.

Genevieve Lester: Absolutely, 100%. They are buffeted by the winds of the comings and goings of the different secretaries and of the different dynamics that are happening but they are doing the work for the country, they're supporting their decision-makers. The analysts in INR are supporting their principals in the best way they can. From the normative role though, objectively speaking, that's the role of intelligence--to support decision making. They provide the best possible awareness so that we have the decision-making advantage over our adversaries. That's what they're doing.

VI: Do you see that also happening in the covert world? There are certainly covert activities that are doing the needed work that helps to keep this country safe.  Are these in danger of being compromised? There are reports that President Trump wants to reign in U.S. spying. He has been active in wanting to do away with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and any restraints on how the U.S. interacts with foreign businesses. How does this color the way the United States is perceived?

Genevieve Lester: I think it's a very interesting point. I think that it's important to separate out those kinds of statements that President Trump is making about those policies and the work of covert action. Obviously, I can't give you a lot of detail on covert action.

I think it's important to remember the wide span of what covert action includes, which is not what we all think of it as being; it is not just paramilitary activity. It's a lot of different things. It is supporting our allies abroad. It is influencing activities in other countries so that they support our national security objectives. There's a long discussion about the ethics and appropriateness of covert action overall, and what it means to make an incursion into a foreign land’s sovereignty, but I would definitely assert that covert action is done for the national security and foreign policy objectives of this country. It has been used over decades to be a “third way” between military and diplomatic activity. I think we can talk about whether that's an okay thing or not. I think, especially from the U.S. perspective, we base our view of it on a sense of ourselves as exceptional-- that is, the concept of American exceptionalism. In some ways, maybe this view boils down to  “might makes right,” and leaves those other ethical issues to one side. That is an important conversation. I wouldn’t argue, though, that covert action has been politicized publicly by the current administration to the extent of other activities.

VI: What about actions within the United States? There's been some pretty high profile arrests recently of people associated with the Chinese. We had the FBI coming in and arresting the head of the chemistry department at Harvard and arresting students at MIT and others working in research labs around the country. Is this the FBI working with in conjunction with the NSA or CIA to identify these activities and individuals accused of working for the Chinese state to steal American technology and information?

Genevieve Lester: I think it's very important to remember that the intelligence/law enforcement agencies are separated. The FBI works domestically, CIA does not, and NSA requires a warrant. Just to assuage anxieties out there, the CIA is not sending officers around to collect information on Americans or anything like that.The FBI is serving a law enforcement purpose when it arrests these individuals, and it obviously also has its own information collection capabilities. They're collecting information to support their law enforcement role. CIA and NSA are not authorized to conduct unbridled activities in this country at all.

VI: The idea of creating an integrated intelligence community was to take down the wall between sharing of information between the CIA and the FBI and other agencies. That was one of the big changes after 9/11, wasn't it?

Geneviere Lester: Yes, that's a very good point, and it was intended to be controlled under warrant. You're right about the fact that information sharing was the main goal. You need to have a FISA, a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant, to investigate targets in the United States. With a FISA request as well, the question is, is the individual that you're targeting an agent of a foreign nation? That's the question that is being asked. Now, we've seen the politicization of that process and that it's easy to do as it is easy to do with all of these things we've been talking about because the Intelligence Community doesn't fight back in public. There are accusations about Carter Page and the FISA warrant being made, but there's no argument coming from the other side. That is where you see as you brought up at the very beginning of our conversation, this “dark state” side, this evil sense about intelligence, which I do not find accurate. It's mainly that it's just an opaque world.

That also brings up these issues of oversight and also whistleblowing. These are conduits to finding out more of what goes on in the intelligence world. An argument could be made that Americans should probably know more about intelligence activities because then we wouldn't have instances that cause paranoia when there's disclosure of some failure or some scandal. There should be more of a base level awareness of what's actually going on all the time. That it's not that CIA officers are running around or the black helicopters are going to come get you. There should be more awareness of the realities of the constraints placed on intelligence operations.

VI:  Speaking of an opaque world, one of the biggest threats that we hear a great deal about come from reports of election interference by cyber attacks and hacking from Russian troll farms and other dark web actors. We fear theft of our own information and hear about cities, hospitals, and municipalities being held ransom by cyber attackers. Are the United States’ intelligence agencies capable of fighting these kinds of cyber attacks?

Genevieve Lester: The United States has these capabilities. Not to sound like a cheerleader for the intelligence community, which I realized I am starting to sound like, but I think one of the things we see is that the policy around cyber has lagged behind. It has not been clear for a long time what capabilities are appropriate to be used, how should this work, what are the threats? Should we be carrying out offensive attacks, defensive attacks? What does that framework look like? I would argue that while we've made some headway in terms of intelligence oversight, cyber still lags behind because the threat is ambiguous.

It's everywhere. We're all hooked up all the time. Your bank account could be hacked right now and what would you do about it? You've got a lot of people working on it. There are different stages of how that is happening. I think the private sector is driven to get ahead of this in a way possibly that, strangely, the government has not been. We're getting a clear voice on what the authority should be, but I would say the policy behind how to deal with cyber- how to talk about it, how to frame the threat, and how to analyze it is lagging behind.

VI:  Is that because of a lack of coordination between the various intelligence agencies or it's just such a hard challenge to get a grip on?

Genevieve Lester: I think it's more the latter. A hard challenge. I think that in some ways, we don't quite understand the depth and breadth of it. Or what do you do if you do understand the depth and breadth of it? We are in such a globalized environment, and we rely so much on the cyber networks and everything else that I think it is hard to keep up. Technology is expanding and speeding up and all of these things are happening very, very quickly. How do we keep up with that?

I think that, partially, this is just government process. It is slow. We've seen over the last 20 years, post 9/11, that in some areas it has sped up in terms of creating new institutions, creating new laws, new legislation to handle some of these ideas. Then you've got the downside of that, which is some of them were poorly thought out. I think the cyber world is a victim of that to some degree. I think that there's a lot of effort being made to get policy in line now, and internally, I think that there's a sense that those agencies were held back. I think that's changing.

Again, back to my earlier metaphor, there is a concern that we are fighting with both hands handcuffed behind our backs while the adversaries don't feel those constraints.

VI: Are these agencies being held back because the Trump administration has been reluctant to actually acknowledge hacking crimes and the influencing of elections by outside entities?

Genevieve Lester: I think that you see the political side of the issue of Russian influence in elections--as we just saw with the election specialist in the ODNI, whose briefing led to the removal of acting DNI Maguire. I think actually that the Trump administration is starting to move forward on granting the authorities for a wider range of activities. We'll see how that develops.

VI: This has been an interesting conversation. It sounds like you think that the intelligence community is on top of what needs to be done to keep the United States safe from real threats. Going forward, what reforms or capabilities would you like to see to assist the intelligence community in doing its work effectively? Do you think that there is a need for more thought about how it operates and for additional constructive oversight?

Geneviere Lester: I think that there are a couple of different issues here. One is the focus of the intelligence community. We have a whiplash effect in this country happening right now. We've spent 20 years on counterterrorism. Now intelligence is being pushed toward a range of different threats, which have actually always been there, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea.

But the dynamic is different now that state actors--or near peer competitors--are a renewed threat. This is going to be more of a parity issue rather than a nation-state fighting non-state actors. But I think if we verge too far away from our counterterrorism mission, we will lose the capabilities that we developed over the last 20 years. We have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm hoping we keep a balance.

Like many of us were suggesting years ago, maybe there has been too much focus on counterterrorism. How do we have a full spectrum of threat assessment? I want us to keep our counterterrorism capabilities and skills. Going forward, the ideal would be if we could remove the politics from the intelligence community. That is, remove the political pressure on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and also restore the relationship between the White House and intelligence community.

You've seen President Trump undermine the intelligence community in terms of undermining the validity of its assessments. We saw that definitely with DNI Coats, who sometimes was at odds with the White House message. I would like to see us return to an environment where politics doesn't have a place in the IC. It was not supposed to, and that has been a goal that they've upheld. I see politics tainting that. Again, not tainting the analysis and not skewing it, but tainting how it is disseminated and how it can be used in decision making.

Dr. Genevieve Lester is the De Serio Chair of Strategic and Theater Intelligence at the US Army War College. Her areas of interest are intelligence; accountability; leadership, and decision- making. She also studies covert action, foreign policy, and civil-military relations. Prior to her position at the US Army War College, Dr. Lester was an assistant professor in the National Defense University’s Joint Special Operations Master of Arts program, located at Fort Bragg. She was visiting assistant professor and faculty coordinator of intelligence studies and faculty coordinator for analytic methods at the Security Studies Program, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, and a senior fellow at the Center for Security Studies also at Georgetown. She was senior research fellow and lecturer at the University of California, Washington Center, and a non-resident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC.   Her book, When Should State Secrets Stay Secret? Accountability, Democratic Governance, and Intelligence, was published with Cambridge University Press.