who is john brennan

John Brennan is an American intelligence official who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2013 to 2017 under President Barack Obama.

Quick profile

• Full name: John Owen Brennan.

• Born: September 22, 1955, in North Bergen, New Jersey.

• Known for: Long CIA career, role in counterterrorism, and later as a prominent media commentator on national security.

Career highlights

• Spent about 25 years at the CIA, starting as an analyst in 1980.

• Served as CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the 1990s, including during the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing.

• Became chief of staff to CIA director George Tenet (1999–2001) and then deputy executive director of the CIA (2001–2003).

• Helped build the structure that evolved into the National Counterterrorism Center and briefly led it before first retiring from the CIA in 2005.

• Served in the Obama White House as the president’s top counterterrorism and homeland security adviser before being confirmed as CIA director in 2013.

As CIA director

• Led the CIA from March 2013 to January 2017.

• Oversaw and defended the U.S. drone campaign targeting terrorist groups in places like Pakistan and Yemen, which drew both praise and controversy.

• Played a central role in the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to benefit Donald Trump.

Public figure after 2017

• Left government when the Obama administration ended in 2017 and became a frequent television analyst on intelligence and security issues, including for NBC and MSNBC.

• Has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, which at times made him a lightning rod in partisan debates about the intelligence community and the Russia investigation.

• Holds positions as a distinguished fellow or scholar at academic and policy institutions, including Fordham Law School and the University of Texas at Austin, and serves on several boards.

Why he’s still a trending topic

• His role in the Russia–2016 election inquiry keeps him in ongoing political and media discussions.

• His sharp public critiques of Trump and defense of career intelligence officials often get amplified in news and forums, where he’s portrayed either as a principled defender of institutions or as a partisan opponent, depending on the viewpoint.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.