John Brennan in 2007: The CIA Is 'Engaged on U.S. Soil'

John Brennan, possibly telling the truth to Congress (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

By Thomas Neuburger

“It is inconceivable that a secret intelligence arm of the government has to comply with all the overt orders of government.” —James Angleton, CIA Deputy Director for Operation (1954–1975) to the Church Committee

This continues a series on the CIA, which starts here: 'Does the CIA Still Do That?' and continues here: "The Culture of the CIA, a First Look".

The question “Does the CIA still do that?” is easy to ask if you look back into what is prehistory for anyone aged forty or younger. The pre-Eighties CIA did literal ungodly things — regime change including in Australia, murder, attempted murder and more. The Agency is often thought to have been involved in domestic operations, like the JFK murder. Though that involvement hasn’t been proved, the evidence is reasonable strong.

Brennan: The CIA Is ‘Engaged on U.S. Soil’

Did I write “thought to have been involved domestically”? Change “thought” to “known.”

In 2015, Wikileaks acquired a cache of private emails by John Brennan, Obama’s CIA chief (2013–2017), he who inserted the Steele dossier into the January 2017 ICA alleging Russian interference in the 2016 election. Despite his multiple (one is tempted to say pro forma) denials, Brennan is widely known to lie when speaking publicly.

Here’s a link to the whole Wikileaks Brennan email cache. For this, I call your attention to this passage in this 2007 document, a draft authored by Brennan himself (emphasis mine):

In light of the seriousness of the transnational terrorist threat, we need to set the appropriate balance between conducting domestic intelligence operations and protecting the privacy rights and liberties of U.S. persons. The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, National Security Agency, CIA, and Department of Defense are all engaged in intelligence activities on U.S. soil, and these activities must be consistent with our laws and reflect the democratic principles and values of our Nation.

When he wrote this, he was a former 25-year veteran CIA officer and current CEO of an “intelligence solutions” company. Two years later he would join the Obama administration, rising to CIA chief.

Intelligence Gathering, Operations or Both?

The CIA has historically had two primary mandates — intelligence gathering and operations (regime change, torture, you name it) — though it has grown a third directorate, Science and Technology, which develops hacking tools like those in Vault 7.

Almost all denials of CIA domestic activities are limited to intelligence gathering, what we would call spying, surveillance. Does the CIA engage in secret domestic operations — for example, by working with FBI and “other government agencies” to pressure Twitter to curate what can be tweeted and what cannot? Does that count as domestic ops?

They aren’t going to say. Yet it’s most certainly true. Does the CIA still do that? If so, what do they do?