The DNI is barred from also being Director of the CIA

ODNI’s history page dates the statute cleanly. After the 9/11 Commission’s report in July 2004, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. President George W. Bush signed it on December 17, 2004. The page says the act established the Director of National Intelligence and ordered a reorganization of the Intelligence Community. ODNI’s current “Who We Are” page calls the DNI the head of that community, the principal advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council on intelligence related to national security, and a presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate. The history page counts 18 organizations in the community.

The sharp clause is in the act text ODNI hosts, not in a chart. Section 102 says there is a Director of National Intelligence, and then: “The individual serving in the position of Director of National Intelligence shall not, while so serving, also serve as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency or as the head of any other element of the intelligence community.” A few lines earlier the same section says the DNI “shall not be located within the Executive Office of the President.” Head of the community is not the same job as Director of the CIA. The statute says one person does not hold both.

This brief does not describe tasking, covert action, or who wins an argument. Those are not on the pages cited here. What is on the pages is the split: a director created in December 2004 who is forbidden to be the CIA’s director at the same time.

Notice Nearby is a paid public-notice register. This is a publisher-desk brief of dni.gov and the act PDF the office posts. It is not Legal Publication and it is not a newspaper.