The 900 Pound Gorillas in the Intelligence Community

The United States Intelligence Community is dominated by two massive, lumbering presences: the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Like gorillas moving through the jungle, they occupy the space, cast long shadows, and make every smaller player adjust to their movements. Their size and history give them influence, but also make them slow to change, resistant to outside ideas, and prone to defending turf instead of solving problems.

Power alone does not guarantee efficiency, coordination, or accountability. In the 21st century, the real test is agility, cooperation, and results. These giant bureaucracies must shed outdated habits, break down barriers, and put the People’s safety and security ahead of turf wars.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created in 1947 to coordinate the nation’s intelligence and give the President and senior leaders accurate, timely information and analysis of global security threats. It was sanctioned to use covert operations, espionage, and human intelligence (HUMINT). Over time, it has become a sprawling, secretive power center with global reach and little meaningful oversight. Its victories are hidden. Its failures, when exposed, have been costly in lives, money, and credibility. The CIA has often behaved as though it is accountable to no one.

Its strengths are reach, resources, and speed. Its weaknesses are arrogance, secrecy, and a history of bending or breaking the law to protect its image. Effective national security demands that the CIA stop guarding turf and undermining partners in the intelligence community. The CIA must protect the safety and security of the American People, not its own power.

The FBI

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) whose mission is to protect the U.S. from domestic threats, terrorism, and conduct counterintelligence activities maintains an Intelligence Branch (FBI–IB) that conducts counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations, seeks to prevent cybercrime and espionage, and provide support to state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the country, but is an agency of the Department of Justice and reports to the Attorney General.

The FBI could easily be streamlined and made more efficient just by eliminating the layers of bureaucracy between the Director and the Special Agents in Charge (SAIC) of each local office. The same is true for the specialized units of the Secret Service.

Since the CIA already is already part of the ODNI and reports to the DNI, the FBI should be moved from the Department of Justice and become part of the ODNI reporting not to the Attorney General but to the DNI. This would eliminate the political turf wars and lack of communication among senior management at both agencies while permitting each agency to maintain its own secure clandestine operations.

The DOJ also maintains an Office of National Security Intelligence (DEA–ONI) to provide intelligence on drug trafficking and narcotics-related terrorism by tracking international drug cartels and investigating narco-terrorism, both operations more properly located within the CIA.

This realignment would preserve prosecutorial independence, improve operational clarity, and maintain the integrity of two distinct constitutional protection systems: one for criminal prosecutions and one for intelligence activities. Each would be more effective in its mission, ensuring that criminal justice safeguards protect citizens at home while intelligence operations defend against threats from abroad.

The Department of Defense (DoD)

The Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest and most powerful military organization in the world. It exists to deter war and, when necessary, to fight and win our nation’s wars. It commands immense resources, advanced technology, and highly trained personnel. Its strengths are global reach, logistical capacity, and unmatched combat capability. Its weaknesses are bureaucratic inertia, procurement waste, and a habit of forcing military solutions onto problems better solved by civilians. These flaws often distort national policy and drain resources from urgent domestic needs.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) provides military intelligence to support national defense and combat operations, collects foreign military intelligence, supports war planning, and conducts defense-related espionage. Yet within the Pentagon, each military service maintains its own intelligence agency reporting only to its Chief of Staff, competing for resources and influence:

• U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM)
• U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)
• U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA)
• U.S. Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (AF ISR)
• U.S. Space Force Intelligence Activity (USSF Intel)

No one is fully accountable for this fragmented military intelligence structure. Consolidating these service-specific intelligence agencies under the DIA and having them report directly to the Secretary of Defense would strengthen coordination and allow the President to balance the DNI and the Secretary of Defense effectively.

The DoD must focus on its core mission of defense while respecting the limits imposed by civilian authority. It must eliminate wasteful duplication among the service branches, end the chronic procurement abuses that waste billions, and never use military assets to serve domestic political agendas. A disciplined, accountable Department of Defense will strengthen national security, protect public funds, and preserve the constitutional balance between civilian government and the armed forces.

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The Department of Defense

The Department of Defense (DOD) is the third major intelligence entity. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) provides military intelligence to support national defense and combat operations, collects foreign military intelligence, supports war planning and operations, and conducts defense-related espionage. The DIA should also assume the management functions of each of the service intelligence departments within the DOD, each of which maintains its own layered bureaucracy and competes for resources and influence.

Within the sprawling labyrinth of the Pentagon, each military service maintains an intelligence agency that reports to its Service Department Chairman or Chief of Staff:

• United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM)
• United States Navy Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)
• United States Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA)
• United States Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (AF ISR)
• United States Space Force Intelligence Activity (USSF Intel)

No single authority is fully in charge, and accountability is diffuse in this military intelligence structure. The intelligence unit of each service should report directly to the Secretary of Defense, a member of the President’s cabinet. This arrangement would allow the President to maintain the balance between the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Secretary of Defense while ensuring clear lines of responsibility and control.

Functional Intelligence Consolidation

The first step in eliminating waste and confusion across the intelligence community is to expose it. A functional organization chart will do that. Unlike a name-and-title chart, it maps every program, its mission, its leadership, and its reporting chain. Overlaps, gaps, and deadweight become impossible to hide. Without a functional organization chart, inefficiency thrives, accountability vanishes, and taxpayer dollars are burned on duplicative operations. Mandating functional organization charts for every intelligence entity is not optional. It is the foundation for real reform.

Unifying Intelligence Command

An intelligence system scattered among competing agencies cannot act with speed or precision. Information is delayed, authority is blurred, and no one is truly accountable. Every redundant or overlapping intelligence agency must be pulled into a single, disciplined chain of command reporting to the ODNI unless there is an operational necessity so compelling that the President himself signs off on the exception. Unity of command will end turf wars and give national leaders a clear, direct source of truth.

Financial and Geospatial Integration

The Department of the Treasury Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA) must be transferred to the ODNI.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) must also move under the ODNI to fuse financial, geospatial, and satellite intelligence into one coordinated framework. This integration will give decision-makers real-time intelligence, shorten response times in crises, and strengthen predictive analysis before threats materialize.

Departmental Realignments

The Department of Energy Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence must have its national security functions reassigned to the DoD, CIA, or DHS, whichever can execute them most effectively. The State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research must be merged into the CIA to create a single, unified foreign threat assessment capability. Fragmented analysis costs time, wastes resources, and leaves the nation vulnerable. These barriers and silos must be dismantled before they cripple our ability to act.

A “Modest” Solution

Reforms will fail without decisive first steps. Congress must legislate a coherent chain of command linking intelligence and homeland security functions. The President must demand functional organization charts from all cabinet secretaries within 30 days. Any Secretary unable to produce one should be replaced.

The Cabinet Secretaries with Congressional authorization must then eliminate all management-level positions that do not deliver services directly to the public. Retain only those performing essential, clearly defined public functions, and conduct desk audits to verify their value. These actions will clear the way for a leaner, more accountable government capable of serving the people effectively.

The Department of Justice (DOJ)

The Department of Justice (DOJ) exists to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice, protect civil rights, and defend the interests of the United States in the Courts. In practice, it often operates as a sprawling bureaucracy that mixes prosecutorial, investigative, and policy functions in ways that blur accountability and invite political misuse.

The Attorney General commands the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Prisons, and other components of the federal law enforcement apparatus. These are critical national assets, but their missions often duplicate work better handled by other agencies. Specialized intelligence or enforcement work often overlaps efforts already underway in the DHS, DoD, or state and local agencies.

The Attorney General must enforce strict mission discipline. The DOJ should focus on prosecuting federal crimes, protecting constitutional rights, and ensuring that justice is applied evenly, regardless of politics or position. It must remain the nation’s impartial guardian of justice.

Consolidating overlapping functions, stripping away unrelated operational roles, and returning the DOJ to its core mission will strengthen public trust, sharpen its effectiveness, and preserve the principle that justice in America is blind, not bent to serve political agendas.

The Other Behemoth of Bureaucracy: HHS

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a sprawling federal empire. On paper, its mission is to protect the health and well-being of every American. It runs Medicare and Medicaid, polices public health through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), funds medical research through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), manages child welfare programs, and enforces health regulations nationwide.

In practice, HHS operates in a crowded field of overlapping agencies. Programs in other departments duplicate its work, waste resources, and blur accountability.

The Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Education (ED) are prime examples of autonomous agencies that should be consolidated within HHS without delay. Housing conditions shape public health, and education outcomes determine economic and social well-being. Both fall squarely within the mission of HHS. Their core functions should be absorbed into HHS, eliminating redundant bureaucracies and putting related programs within a single chain of command.

A unified HHS, with a clarified mission and streamlined authority, would cut duplication, remove excess management, and concentrate resources to provide direct services to the public. This is not just administrative housekeeping. It is the difference between a bureaucracy that consumes resources and one that delivers results.

Streamlining Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created to unify American defenses against terrorism and other major threats. Instead, it has grown into an unwieldy collection of quasi-independent agencies that often operate in silos, duplicate one another’s work, and drain resources.

Homeland security is not served by a patchwork of overlapping agencies. It demands a lean, integrated structure that can move quickly, act decisively, and remain directly answerable to the American people.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must be restructured into a truly integrated command system. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should merge into one border enforcement service. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) should be reassigned to the Department of Transportation (DOT). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) must have direct operational authority in disaster zones. Together with the United States Coast Guard, these agencies must operate within a single, unified command structure. Clear authority and accountability are the only way to prevent waste, end conflicting missions, and ensure rapid, coordinated action during crises.

Narcotics Enforcement Realignment

The Drug Enforcement Administration cannot justify its survival as a stand-alone agency. Its enforcement personnel must be moved to DHS, and its prosecutorial staff must be absorbed into the FBI. This realignment will free the DOJ to return to its original role as the nation’s legal counsel and chief prosecutor. Every day we delay, money and manpower are wasted on a redundant structure that serves itself instead of the public.

The United States Secret Service (USSS)

The United States Secret Service (USSS) now has a unique dual mission: providing protection for the President, Vice President, visiting heads of state, and other designated individuals, and conducting criminal investigations related to counterfeiting, financial crimes, and cybersecurity threats to the nation’s financial infrastructure. Historically, the USSS was part of the Department of the Treasury, reflecting its origins in anti-counterfeiting enforcement. It was moved to the DHS in 2003 to integrate protective intelligence into the broader homeland security framework.

The personnel at USSS who investigate counterfeiting, financial crimes and cybersecurity threats to the nation’s financial infrastructure should be moved to the FBI where they can be integrated into similar ongoing FBI operations. That will eliminate layers of management and end duplication of effort.

The USSS protection mission should remain in DHS, where it can directly coordinate with national security intelligence. Because of its unique and specialized mission, keeping the USSS within DHS preserves its independence while allowing full integration into a unified national security strategy.

Reorganizing Government

The President and Congress must demand functional organization charts from every cabinet-level agency within 30 days. Without them, inefficiency and lack of accountability will continue unchecked. Eliminating unnecessary layers of management, consolidating overlapping missions, and closing redundant offices will ensure every position, program, and tax dollar serves a defined public purpose. This is not optional. It is the foundation for restoring an accountable, effective government worthy of the American people.

Enforcing Accountability

Reform is meaningless without enforcement. Congress must hold agency heads personally accountable for meeting reorganization deadlines and performance benchmarks. Failure to deliver must result in budget cuts, demotion, or removal from office.

The President and Congress must make it clear that agency performance will be judged solely by results delivered to the public, not by reports filed, meetings held, or budgets spent. Every program must show measurable benefits, and every manager must justify their position. Those who cannot produce must be replaced by those who will.

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