- Aaron Lukas appointed acting director of national intelligence by President Trump
- Lukas replaces Tulsi Gabbard and is described as highly respected by Trump
- He has over 20 years experience and was previously CIA chief of station
US President Donald Trump has appointed former CIA officer Aaron Lukas as acting director of national intelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard. Announcing the decision in a social media post on Friday, Trump described Lukas as “highly respected.”
Lukas currently serves as principal deputy director of national intelligence and has more than two decades of experience in the spy community. According to his official profile released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Lukas is a former CIA chief of station and has managed clandestine programmes linked to US national security operations. An Arkansas native, Lukas graduated from Texas A&M University and The George Washington University.
Lukas has conducted covert operations and managed liaison relationships in multiple countries during his intelligence career. It also says he worked across several areas of intelligence collection and analysis and has experience coordinating policy across different US government agencies.
Before taking up senior intelligence roles, Lukas worked as an analyst at the Cato Institute. In 2002, he joined the George W Bush administration as chief speechwriter for then-US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, The Bloomberg reported.
During Trump's first term, Lukas served on the National Security Council where he worked as deputy senior director and later acting senior director. More recently, he served as chief of staff to Richard Grenell, when Grenell was acting director of national intelligence.
Lukas was nominated last year to serve as Gabbard's deputy. During his Senate confirmation hearing, he criticised the functioning of the US intelligence community, which includes 18 agencies. He described the system as “aimless, bloated, risk-averse, and disconnected at times from the core mission of intelligence.”
He also praised Trump and Gabbard for removing what he called “a toxic diversity, equity, and inclusion political dogma that at best was a distraction and at worst pitted IC officers against one another.”
Lukas has also publicly backed Trump's criticism of investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. In a February social media post, he said “bad actors weaponized intelligence to launch a baseless narrative that undermined President Trump, deceived the American people, and distracted from our critical national security mission.”
According to Senate disclosure documents, Lukas has made small political donations to Republican candidates including Blake Masters, Nick Freitas, Martha McSally and Ricky Gill, who currently serves on the National Security Council.
