WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday tapped a former CIA career analyst to be deputy director of the agency.
Vaughn Bishop, who has years of experience analyzing intelligence, will serve under CIA Director Gina Haspel, who worked undercover for years on the operations side of the agency.
“Vaughn is a superb choice,” Haspel said in a note to the CIA workforce. “I cannot express how pleased I am that he has agreed to return to CIA. He will help empower every agency officer to advance CIA’s mission in concrete and measurable ways.”
Bishop, who joined the CIA in 1981, holds three degrees from Northwestern University - bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science and a doctorate in political science and African studies.
In the 1990s, he led intelligence efforts during crises in Somalia and Rwanda. After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he served in several overseas assignments, including chief of station of a key, unidentified U.S. ally. In that post, he focused on counterterrorism operations.
Bishop served as the CIA director’s representative to the United States Pacific Command and later led CIA analysis on the Asia Pacific, Latin America and Africa. Later in his career, Bishop served as the national intelligence officer for Africa and in 2010 rose to be vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, which provides U.S. intelligence forecasts of challenges facing national security.
Bishop retired from the agency in 2011, but he was later asked to return for four years to serve as the CIA ombudsman for analytic objectivity, working to prevent politics from seeping into intelligence work.
The deputy director post does not require Senate confirmation.
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