The National Intelligence Council bridges the intelligence and policy communities to provide policymakers with intelligence assessments. It famously produces National Intelligence Estimates and makes other judgments that gain legitimacy from the claim that they represent the consensus of 18 different intelligence agencies.

That, of course, is nonsense. The Central Intelligence Agency assesses problem sets that Space Force intelligence does not. Coast Guard intelligence has little say or interest in what might happen in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps bunkers buried under mountains in central Iran. As a consequence, National Intelligence Council products and National Intelligence Estimates promote groupthink. The council’s officers also play politics, perhaps not always via leaks, but simply by assigning personnel with specific policy proclivities to oversee the process.