Trump Can Lead on Intelligence Reform by Taking Politics Out

The appointment of former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes to chair the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) is a great sign that President-elect Donald Trump means business when it comes to reforming and strengthening our intelligence community (IC).

Ensuring that our commander in chief is getting the best, most accurate, and most up-to-date intelligence available, is vital to keeping Americans safe. And the President's Intelligence Advisory Board is a great tool to use to help make that happen.

I first wrote about the PIAB for Newsmax in January of 2017 and urged the then incoming Trump administration to use the PIAB as a vehicle to help enact reforms in the IC.

President Trump did appoint a strong chairman of the PIAB in Steve Feinberg, founder of Cerberus Capital Management, but he didn't take office until May of 2018, after much of the damage had been done.

This time, with President Trump announcing his chairman before he even takes office, it’s making it harder for the deep state to engage in the kinds of shenanigans they did during his first term.

It's important to understand the PIAB, its history, and how it came about.

During the 1950s, relations between the CIA and NSA were bad.

The two agencies could not get along. The NSA Archive, which is housed at George Washington University, documents how the CIA deliberately cut the NSA out of one operation, which NSA leadership read about in the newspapers when discovered by the Soviets in 1956.

Declassified CIA documents from the 1950s reveal intelligence failures relating to the USSR and Eastern Europe.

And the American intelligence community failed to provide sound intelligence on Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's hydrogen bomb program or an adequate warning of its detonation in 1953.

Dwight Eisenhower, the no nonsense architect of the Normandy invasion, had had enough.

He wanted to bring in respected Americans from outside the federal government who knew intelligence and who would give him sound advice on how to improve America’s intelligence capabilities.

In 1956, Ike established the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities. President Kennedy renamed it the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and today it is known as the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.

President Carter abolished the board in 1977, but President Reagan reestablished it in 1981.

Sadly, President Obama made little use of it during his eight years in office and drastically cut its membership. Further, President Biden didn’t appoint any members to the PIAB until after being in office for some 15 months.

Today, President-elect Trump, with good reason, lacks confidence in the intelligence community, as did President Eisenhower in the 1950s.

President Trump is sending a bold message to the intelligence community and the media by following Eisenhower’s example and reinvigorating the President's Intelligence Advisory Board by naming a strong chairman even before his term has begun.

This writer is hopeful that our soon to be nation's 47th president will build on this and appoint other members who know intelligence and how to reform government.

They need to be "outside-the-box" thinkers who are not bureaucrats, and also who can't be co-opted by the institutional bureaucracy.

Donald J. Trump can also lead by telling his senior intelligence appointees that when they take office, they can check their political hats at the door.

By working closely with a reinvigorated President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, America can send a strong message to America's allies and enemies.

Following the example of Eisenhower, Trump can make it clear that under his administration, America will have a non-partisan and highly effective intelligence apparatus fully focused on the best intelligence to keep the United States safe.

Van Hipp is Chairman of American Defense International, Inc. He is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Army and author of "The New Terrorism: How to Fight It and Defeat It." He is the 2018 recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Sept. 11 Garden Leadership Award for National Security. Read Van Hipp's Reports — More Here.