With Republicans poised to lose control of investigatory panels in the House of Representatives, President Trump is resurrecting a potentially powerful board capable of intimately reviewing intelligence agency conduct on his direct orders.
The White House announced five appointments to the Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board on Tuesday evening, after selecting a chairman and vice chairwoman earlier this year.
The dormant board created by former President Dwight Eisenhower has no formal powers, but derives significant authority directly from the president, operating as his surrogate to smooth over agency rivalries, investigate misconduct, and evaluate intelligence collection policies.
Experts say Trump could roil the intelligence community by asking his hand-picked panel to draft reports, for example, on alleged surveillance abuses against his 2016 campaign associates, a disputed charge made by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, who are poised to lose subpoena powers.
"If you really had an agenda and were willing to pick reliable people that are also people that are smart and knew enough to be dangerous, you could make life miserable for the intelligence agencies through the board," Desch said. "If the president were really a competent political warrior, there would be a way to constitute the board in which it could really serve as a gadfly or a prod to the intelligence community, because it has a lot of access ... if the president were willing to task it in a serious investigative way and then follow up, the board could be quite useful. But I don't see President Trump being that serious and that bureaucratically savvy."
New appointees to the board include Oracle CEO Safra Ada Catz; former Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; former White House economic adviser Jeremy Katz; Goldman Sachs managing director and University of Virginia adjunct law professor James Donovan; former CIA and FBI counterterrorism official Kevin E. Hulbert; and a New Jersey resident named David Robertson.
The new members join board chairman Stephen Feinberg, a billionaire hedge fund manager and military contractor appointed by Trump in May, and vice-chairwoman Samantha Ravich, appointed in August. The board historically has had a small staff and office space in the New Executive Office Building near the White House. Members have security clearances and generally meet quarterly.
Desch said the new appointments "look pretty typical" for the board, with a wide variety of professional backgrounds.
Attorney Roel Campos, who served as a member of the board during former President Barack Obama's first term, said he was unfamiliar with new appointees, but that "the board is essentially the tool of the president," with historically wide-ranging influence.
“Each president essentially uses the board to his needs and liking," Campos said. "Bottom line, it all depends on President Trump and how he plans to use the PIAB. ... The board, to have any influence at all, has to have the full support of the president, then the board has tremendous influence and power."...
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