Richard Grenell Begins Cleaning House in the Intelligence Office Firing "Deep State" Holdovers

Richard Grenell’s tenure as the nation’s top intelligence official may be short-lived, but he wasted no time this week starting to shape his team of advisers, ousting his office’s No. 2 official — a longtime "Deep State"  intelligence officer — and bringing in an expert on Trump conspiracy theories to help lead the agency, according to officials.

Mr. Grenell has also requested the intelligence behind the classified briefing last week before the House Intelligence Committee where officials told lawmakers that Russia was interfering in November’s presidential election and that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia favored President Trump’s re-election. The briefing later prompted Mr. Trump’s anger as he complained that Democrats would use it against him.

"Deep Staters" Joseph Maguire, the former acting director of national intelligence, and his deputy, Andrew P. Hallman, resigned on Friday. 

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Mr. Grenell told Mr. Hallman, popular in the office’s Liberty Crossing headquarters, that his service was no longer needed, according to two officials. Mr. Hallman, who has worked in the office or at the C.I.A. for three decades, expressed confidence in his colleagues in a statement but also referred to the “uncertainties that come with change.”

The ouster of Mr. Hallman and exit of Mr. Maguire, who also oversaw the National Counterterrorism Center, allowed Mr. Grenell to install his own leadership team.

One of his first hires was Kashyap Patel, a senior National Security Council staff member and former key aide to Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Patel will have a mandate to “clean house,” CBS News reported, citing a person close to the matter.

Mr. Patel was best known as the lead author of a politically charged memo two years ago that accused F.B.I. and Justice Department leaders of abusing their surveillance powers to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser. 

Working with Mr. Nunes, Mr. Patel began what they called Objective Medusa to examine the F.B.I.’s investigation into whether anyone associated with the Trump campaign conspired with Russia’s election interference in 2016.

“I hired him to bust doors down,” Mr. Nunes told the author Lee Smith for his book “The Plot Against the President,” which chronicles Mr. Patel’s investigations on behalf of the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. 

Mr. Patel was interviewed extensively in the book, which claims that journalists, diplomats, law enforcement and intelligence officials engaged in a vast plot to undermine Mr. Trump’s campaign and then bring him down as president.

As acting director of national intelligence, Mr. Grenell has access to any secrets he may want to review. And he has requested access to information from the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The revelations about last week’s briefing reignited fears about Russia’s continuing efforts to interfere in the American election, including in the Democratic primary races.

During the briefing, which was supposed to focus on coordination between government agencies to fight election interference, not the acts themselves, Republicans challenged the intelligence agencies’ conclusion that the Russians continue to favor Mr. Trump. Some officials said the briefing was not meant to be controversial and that intelligence officials intended to simply reiterate what they had told the Senate Intelligence Committee weeks earlier.

How long Mr. Grenell will be able to stay as the acting director is an open question. For him to remain past March 11 — a limit imposed by federal law — Mr. Trump must formally nominate someone else for the director of national intelligence post.

 The White House is considering Pete Hoekstra, the former Republican congressman who is now the American ambassador to the Netherlands, according to three officials.

Whether the Senate would be willing to formally consider Mr. Hoekstra is unclear. But if Mr. Trump were to send a nomination to the Senate it would, under federal law, allow Mr. Grenell to serve for at least another six months.