Mike Hayden
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General Michael V. Hayden was the Director of the National Security Agency on September 11, 2001, and subsequently became Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President George W. Bush.

"Waiting for a 9/11"

Per John Kiriakou, relaying NSA whistleblower Tom Drake, Hayden on the morning of September 11, 2001 told NSA personnel that the agency had been "waiting for a 9/11 so that they could implement the bigger program and grab everybody's electronics."

Kiriakou's framing: "Not only is it illegal for NSA to intercept the communications of American citizens or U.S. persons, which is anybody in the country legally on a green card, it is a part of NSA's founding charter forbidding them from intercepting the communications of Americans or U.S. persons. And they just say, 'Tough. 9/11. National security. What are you going to do? You got to start from scratch.'"

Reputation at NSA

Kiriakou describes Hayden as an egomaniac who was disliked at the NSA, where employees actively sought transfers to the CIA: "It was such an amateur hour under Michael Hayden over there at NSA. Nobody liked working for Hayden."

Personal falling-out and later decline

Kiriakou recounts a personal falling-out with Hayden after refusing to address him as "General" backstage at a Bill Maher taping, Kiriakou, a civilian, called him "Mike," prompting Hayden to walk out and skip the show. He says Hayden suffered a major stroke about a year before that interview and appeared frail, using two canes and needing his mouth wiped, at a National Press Club event.

On the "deep state" and CIA directors

Kiriakou has used Hayden's career, and the broader pattern of career intelligence officials, to illustrate what he considers a real "deep state": officials in senior positions for 25 to 42 years who outlast presidents and slow-roll directives they disagree with. He explains Chuck Schumer's January 2017 remark that intelligence agencies have "nine ways from Sunday to screw you" as meaning agencies slow-roll or ignore presidential directives they oppose, something he says happened to both Jimmy Carter and Trump. Kiriakou says he is philosophically opposed to any CIA director having been a general or admiral, arguing the last CIA director with true independence from the president was Stansfield Turner, who served from 1977 to 1981.

See also

- Tom Drake
- Section 702
- John Brennan
