§3026 Deputy Directors of National Intelligence

Summary

The law creates a Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. The President chooses the Principal Deputy and the Senate must confirm that choice. If the job is empty, the Director of National Intelligence recommends someone to the President. The Principal Deputy must have strong national security experience and management skills. While serving, the Principal Deputy cannot hold another job in the intelligence community. The Principal Deputy helps the Director and fills in for the Director when the Director is absent, disabled, or the job is empty. The Director may also appoint up to four Deputy Directors. The Director gives them their duties or follows what other laws say. No more than one of the two top jobs (the Director and the Principal Deputy) may be a commissioned officer on active duty. Congress thinks it is usually good if one of them is an active military officer or has military intelligence experience. An active-duty officer in one of these jobs is not under control of the Secretary of Defense or other Defense Department officers for that job, cannot use military rank to supervise Defense Department people except as law allows, is not counted against military officer limits, keeps their military rank and benefits, and continues to get military pay and allowances while serving; the Director of National Intelligence must reimburse the military for that pay.