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.