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.[1]
”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.”[1]
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.’”[2]
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.”[3]
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.[4] 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.[4]
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.[5] 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.[6] 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.[7]