Morgan Muir, the longtime CIA analyst who The New York Times reportedly charged with delivering President Biden’s daily intelligence briefings, played a leading role in the CIA’s defense of the torture program, and quoted information that the agency later publicly admitted to be false during a standoff with the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2013, BuzzFeed News reports. Muir’s degree of involvement in the confrontation was not previously known, per BuzzFeed.
Daniel Jones, a former Senate investigator and lead author of the committee’s 6,700-page report on the torture program, said he “would not trust Muir to” convey accurate information, “and former Senator Mark Udall (D- Colo.), An outspoken member of the committee at the time, said Biden “should be deeply concerned about entrusting his presidential daily briefing to anyone who may have helped cover up this dark chapter in our nation’s history.” Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), A committee member then and now, did not specifically address Muir, but told BuzzFeed “the American people deserve transparency about the backgrounds of senior intelligence officials.”
Amanda Schoch, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said Muir is a “well-respected intelligence officer who has demonstrated the highest standards of integrity and professionalism throughout his career.” But she added that Muir is not Biden’s briefer “as that term is commonly understood,” and he will not be in the Oval Office. Instead, he will reportedly be in charge of what is known as ‘mission integration’, meaning he will coordinate ‘intelligence gathering and analysis during multiple briefings’. Read more at BuzzFeed News.
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