President-elect Joe Biden has named as his nominee for CIA director William J. Burns, a veteran diplomat with three decades of service among several administrations, Biden’s transition team said Monday.
If confirmed, Burns would be the first leader of the CIA who had a lifelong career at the State Department. Biden hopes that the pick would help restore credibility to an intelligence agency beaten down by President Donald Trump, CNN reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
“The American people will sleep soundly with him as our next CIA Director,” Biden said in the statement.
Burns, who was deputy secretary of state during Barack Obama’s administration, has warned before of Trump wreaking havoc on American foreign policy in his last days in office. In an essay published in The Atlantic in August 2020, Burns wrote: “Trump is unlikely to discover his inner Hippocrates and do no harm in foreign policy over the next five months. In fact, the evidence suggests the exact opposite.”
“If he loses, I doubt that he will suddenly embrace the traditional bipartisan commitment to effective transitions,” Burns wrote.
Washington Post opinion columnist David Ignatius first reported the news of Burns’ nomination in a column supporting the pick. “The choice of Burns will disappoint those who wanted a career intelligence officer to succeed Gina Haspel, the current director,” Ignatius wrote.
But “for an agency that lives on personal trust, Burns is an apt choice,” Igantius wrote.
Burns has served across five Democratic and Republican presidential administrations in a variety of posts. He served as ambassador to Jordan in the Bill Clinton administration and to Russia under George W. Bush. His Russia experience likely appealed to Biden in making the pick.
Burns retired from the Foreign Service in 2014 and serves as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.