What to expect from new Director of National Intelligence Rich Grenell

Here’s what we can expect.

In contrast with many observers now fulminating on Twitter, I’m skeptical that Grenell will politicize the intelligence community.

Yes, Grenell revels in the partisan wildfire that so defines our present political discourse. And yes, Grenell is highly ambitious and will want to reward Trump for his appointment.

But Grenell is also very smart.

He will know that the DNI job carries immense opportunity but also serious risk to his own ambitions — which I suspect are significant. Grenell will now be responsible for supervising the intelligence community’s key mission: serving the nation’s interests with robust operations and analysis. That means guiding 17 individual intelligence agencies, each handling a vast array of different challenges.

To name just a few: terrorism, Chinese economic policy, and Russian weapons platforms. If there is a major intelligence failure that incurs damage to U.S. interests, Grenell will share in the blame.

Grenell is highly unlikely to try and turn the intelligence community into a partisan war horse. Such an effort would fail in face of the institutional impulses those agencies have for the national interest and their mission.

Moreover, for all his Twitter comments, Grenell is a patriot. From his seven-year tenure as chief spokesman at the United Nations and his time in Berlin (which has a large CIA station he would have liaised with), Grenell will know that good intelligence is forward-leaning, corroborated, and commensurate with policy-maker needs. I suspect Grenell will have a good relationship with CIA Director Gina Haspel, who has forged an effective working relationship with Trump by avoiding leaks and focusing on getting reliable information into Trump’s hands.

That said, Grenell is likely to stamp his own priorities onto his new role. Two issues stand out: China’s use of Huawei and other technology platforms as intelligence services, and Iran.

On China, Grenell has taken a leading stand alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in trying to persuade U.S. allies that they will lose some access to U.S. intelligence material if they allow Huawei to build out their 5G networks. Expect Grenell to emphasize this point in his meetings with allied intelligence chiefs. His voice will carry added weight in these meetings due to his close personal relationship with the president.

On Iran, Grenell is a clear hawk. Part of his motivation seems personal — Iran’s violent repression of gay rights conflicts with Grenell’s efforts to decriminalize homosexuality around the world (Grenell is gay himself). Determined to undermine the regime, Grenell scored successes in his tenure as ambassador. Most notable was his persuading the German government to block delivery of financial reserves to Tehran. He is likely to push the CIA in particular for a more aggressive operational tempo against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Ultimately, though, I believe this pick will be better for the intelligence community than many assume, such as these examples below.

In Grenell, Trump now has a smart, loyal voice to guide him on matters of national security. But the intelligence community also gets something: a leader with Trump’s ear, and someone who is keen to impress. Both sides, then, can forge common ground in America’s interest.