Of course, every president has the right to choose leaders with whom he has close relationships and deep trust, and Trump is hardly unique in being accused of installing friends into positions of power. But although every presidential administration exerts some degree of political influence over intelligence agencies, at a minimum it is traditional for those selected to senior posts in the USIC to have relevant expertise and are generally seen as nonpartisan, given that the work of intelligence agencies has historically been considered as so important to be above politics. Trump, by contrast, appears to be elevating fierce loyalists whose main qualifications are ideological alignment, not experience, and who in some cases have directly maligned the work of the USIC. While Trump's nominees, assuming the Senate confirms them, may not end up being as political as feared, and though there are significant institutional barriers to widespread politicization, the mere...
