FBI National Security Branch
Welcome! I’m Tom Griffin and this is my intelligence history newsletter. Feel free to share this article with the button below.
I hope this short subscriber profile is timely given the apparent power struggle between FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard. Attempts to centralise counterintelligence at the FBI’s expense are not new, and I hope to examine one previous episode in the near future.
The National Security Branch seal (FBI, public domain).
The FBI’s National Security Branch is responsible for a range of security functions including counterintelligence and counterterrorism.
History
The March 2005 report of the US WMD Commission recommended:
The FBI create a new National Security Service within the Bureau and under a single Executive Assistant Director. This service would include the FBI’s Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence Divisions and its Directorate of Intelligence, and would be subject to the coordination and budget authorities of the DNI.1
A directive of President George W. Bush in line with this recommendation created the National Security Branch the following September.2
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Tom Griffin on intelligence history to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.