# Serving at the pleasure of the president

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Serving at the pleasure of the president," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/serving-at-the-pleasure-of-the-president/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The employment rule John Kiriakou says he was taught in his first week at the CIA: agency employees have none of the protections of the Civil Service Act and can be dismissed at will, over a bad tie or an unwelcome line in the President's Daily Brief. He treats the rule as long-standing and harmless in itself, because every previous president wanted unbiased analysis — and as newly dangerous when a president fires the analysts whose assessments he dislikes.*

- **The rule:** CIA employees do not have the protections of the Civil Service Act
- **When he learned it:** His first week at the agency
- **What it permits:** Dismissal over your face, your tie, or a line in the [President's Daily Brief](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/presidents-daily-brief)
- **The remedy:** 'There's literally nothing you can do about it'
- **What used to restrain it:** 'Every other president … has wanted unbiased analysis'
- **The counter-example:** A 28-year-old analyst winning a written argument with [Bill Clinton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bill-clinton)

**Serving at the pleasure of the president** is the employment status of every CIA officer, and in [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s account the reason honest analysis depends entirely on the president's appetite for it.

## The rule

*"One thing about the CIA — and I was taught this in my very first week — the CIA does not have the protections of the Civil Service Act. CIA employees serve at the pleasure of the president. And so if the president doesn't like your face, or doesn't like the tie that you're wearing, or doesn't like what you wrote in the [President's Daily Brief](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/presidents-daily-brief), he can fire you, and there's literally nothing you can do about it. And officers and analysts know this."*[1]

## Why it did not matter before

Kiriakou's point is that the power was never the problem. *"Every other president since the creation of the CIA has wanted unbiased analysis. No other president has wanted a rubber stamp of his own policies, whatever they happen to be."*[2]

The illustration he gives is his own, at 28: he got into a written argument with [Bill Clinton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bill-clinton) over the Iraqi no-fly zones, conducted through the briefer, and eventually the briefer came back with the outcome — *"you know what, the president just gave up. He admits you're the expert, he's not. He's going to go with your analysis."*[2][3]

*"Well, that's what happened in a normal situation. Not that everybody's fired, and then you just do what you want to do anyway."*[3]

## The case he was answering

The question that prompted it was whether [Tulsi Gabbard](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/tulsi-gabbard) should remain in post when the president publicly dismisses assessments she has testified to under oath. Kiriakou's reading of those dismissals was that they are not about her: *"what he means is Netanyahu doesn't want to hear this."* And the consequence he expects is structural — *"if there is an assessment published that he doesn't like or approve of, he'll fire everybody that was involved in the assessment."*[4][1]

## See also

- [Tulsi Gabbard](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/tulsi-gabbard)
- [President's Daily Brief](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/presidents-daily-brief)
- [Bill Clinton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bill-clinton)
- [Iran Nuclear Assessment](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/iran-nuclear-assessment)

## Sources

1. Iranian Retaliation Strikes the CIA (2026-03-02), at 18:27. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ6yjjr1ogA&t=1107s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-02-judging-freedom-iranian-retaliation-strikes-the-cia/
2. Iranian Retaliation Strikes the CIA (2026-03-02), at 18:58. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ6yjjr1ogA&t=1138s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-02-judging-freedom-iranian-retaliation-strikes-the-cia/
3. Iranian Retaliation Strikes the CIA (2026-03-02), at 19:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ6yjjr1ogA&t=1169s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-02-judging-freedom-iranian-retaliation-strikes-the-cia/
4. Iranian Retaliation Strikes the CIA (2026-03-02), at 17:56. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ6yjjr1ogA&t=1076s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-02-judging-freedom-iranian-retaliation-strikes-the-cia/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/serving-at-the-pleasure-of-the-president/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt