Amaryllis Fox Kennedy
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Amaryllis Fox Kennedy is a former CIA officer whom John Kiriakou identifies as having served under non-official cover. Her commercial cover, he says he is told, was as an international art consultant, a line of work he notes carries a great deal of money, a great deal of hidden money, and a great deal of money laundering, which is what made it serviceable.

The blocked nomination

Kiriakou says she was to have been deputy director of the CIA, and that Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, whom he characterises as a statist and a neoconservative, refused. His reading of the motive is personal rather than substantive: Cotton had wanted to be CIA director himself, was passed over for Mike Pompeo in Trump's first term, and resented the appearance of an upstart, married to Robert F. Kennedy's son and lately the campaign manager, taking a job he thought should have been his.

Cotton sent word to the White House that he would filibuster the appointment. Kiriakou's assessment of what happened next is that the president outmanoeuvred him: "the president did something that was just so smart, he named her deputy national security adviser, which is a way more important job, because the CIA director reports to the national security adviser."

Kiriakou notes that the counterterrorism portfolio within that office was not hers, being held by Sebastian Gorka, with whom Kiriakou has both a personal and a professional quarrel.

Her cover

Using her as an illustration of how unpredictable cover positions are, Kiriakou described Fox Kennedy, "who until recently was the Deputy National Security Advisor and is the daughter-in-law of um Bobby Kennedy Jr.", as a deep cover officer "and her cover was that she was uh a fine art consultant." He paired the example with another deep cover officer he had once met whose cover was wildlife photographer, to make the point that no occupation is more or less likely than any other.

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Sebastian Gorka
- Aldrich Ames
