The CIA official responsible for overseeing President Biden’s daily intelligence briefing is said to be leading a deadlock between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
In 2013, Morgan Muir, then a senior CIA analyst, played a leading role in advocating the CIA’s false allegations in defense of its torture program, Buzzfeed News first reported.
The Senate Committee found, based on the CIA’s own reporting, that “enhanced interrogation techniques” against terror suspects were ineffective, but Muir led a series of battle rallies where the CIA attacked these findings.
After Buzzfeed questioned the CIA about their findings about Muir’s role, an agency spokesman said Muir would not directly inform the president. The New York Times first reported last week that Muir would inform the president directly, and the agency did not explain the switch.
At the time, the commission had urged the CIA to release its internal report that was devastating to the CIA’s interrogation techniques. After the 6,700-page report was released, Daniel Jones, senate investigator and lead author of the report, said Muir continued to defend the value of the torture program, using information that the CIA later admitted to be false.
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Jones said Muir’s history would disqualify him from the new role, as he cannot be trusted “to convey accurate information.”
“I wouldn’t trust him,” said Jones.
CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett said Jones’ allegations were “baseless” and described Muir as “an exemplary career intelligence officer whose character is indisputable.”
Former Democratic Senator Mark Udall, an outspoken critic of the CIA’s torture practices in light of the 2013 report, urged Biden not to be informed by anyone defending the practices.
“President Biden has assembled a strong national security team, but he 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,” Udall said in a statement. statement to Buzzfeed.
“I can affirm that it is critical that intelligence agencies provide the president and other leaders with unbiased, factual and honest information. As we now know, the CIA and its leadership have for years misled the public, senators and senate staff about the systematic and brutal torture of inmates, ”he continued.
Muir also served as a briefer to President George W. Bush for three years.
Office of National Intelligence spokesman director Amanda Schoch denied that Muir would work directly with Biden in the Oval Office.
“He’s not the shortest of the president, as that term is commonly understood, and there are no plans to keep him in the oval,” said Schoch.
Schoch said Muir will be in charge of integrating missions or coordinating intelligence across multiple agencies. She said he will play a role in overseeing the content of the President’s Daily Brief, but the briefs are likely to be delivered by various “expert briefers.”
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Jones said Muir was involved in a number of “false claims,” including when the CIA claimed he was successful in obtaining information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a recognized mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. The agency said Mohammed had provided information about another terror operator after he was subjected to waterboarding, but documents in the report showed that the CIA obtained that information from Mohammed before he was tortured.