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• The Director and Deputy Director should request briefings on all CIA activities and presence overseas, as well as any CIA-controlled access programs and existing covert action findings, without exception.

• The Director and Deputy Director should meet with all directorates and mission centers, prioritizing those that are aligned most closely with the President’s priorities and calibrating collection and operations based on the President’s intelligence requirements. This includes any areas where the CIA might be conducting its own diplomacy parallel to official State Department policy. It must be clear that the CIA’s liaison relationships overseas must follow and not contradict those set at the policy level by the President through the State Department.

The other principal offices responsible for executing the CIA’s mission include the Directorate of Operations, Directorate of Analysis, Directorate of Science and Technology, Directorate of Support, and Directorate of Digital Innovation. If senior leadership finds any program or operation to be inconsistent with the President’s agenda, the Director should immediately halt that program or operation.

Reining in Bureaucracy. The CIA’s bureaucracy continues to grow. Because mid-level managers lack accountability, there are areas in which personnel are not responsive to any authority, including the President. The President should instruct the Director to hire or promote new individuals to lead the various directorates and mission centers. This new crop of mid-level leaders should carry out clear directives from senior CIA leadership, which means more accountability and new ways of thinking to benefit the mission.

In addition, the President should task the Director with significantly broadening recruitment, expediting onboarding practices, and shifting resources away from headquarters, including terminal generalist GS-15s when OPM buyouts, forced rotations, or up-and-out personnel policies are set for particular positions. The CIA must find creative ways to align mission requirements with hiring needs, recruit diverse sets of individuals with unique backgrounds, and become more open to hiring private-sector experts directly into senior positions. In addition, the Director should break the cabal of bureaucrats in D.C. by permanently moving various directorates, such as Support and Science and Technology, out of Virginia and possibly open campuses outside of D.C. where analysts and other experts could contribute virtually.

Redirecting Resources. Certain CIA employees and offices have focused on promoting divisive ideological or cultural agendas and fostering a damaging culture of risk aversion and complacency. As soon as possible, the Director should divert resources from any activities that promote unnecessary and distracting social engineering. The Director should implement changes in promotion criteria