Eli Lake, Columnist

Obama's CIA Director Wants to Stick Around for Clinton

John Brennan has privately signaled that he doesn't want to leave his role. But there's competition.

August 3, 2016 at 10:00 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Not in a rush to leave.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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If Hillary Clinton wins the U.S. presidential election in November, John Brennan would like to continue his post as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials tell me Brennan has signaled in private conversations that he loves the job and would like to keep it if she's elected. Plus, Brennan does not want to be perceived as a lame-duck director, particularly as he leads an ambitious plan to restructure the agency.