page_title: John Brennan (CIA officer)
section_title: Nomination
hierarchical_section_title: John Brennan (CIA officer) / Career / CIA Director (2013–2017) / Nomination
caption_attribution_description: English: United States Vice President Joe Biden swears in CIA Director John Brennan in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on 8 March 2013. Members of Brennan's family stand with him. Brennan was sworn in with his hand on an original draft of the United States Constitution, dating from 1787, which has George Washington's personal handwriting and annotations on it.
context_page_description: John Owen Brennan is a former American intelligence officer who served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from March 2013 to January 2017. He served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, with the title Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President. Previously, he advised Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 election campaign and presidential transition. Brennan withdrew his name from consideration for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the first Obama administration over concerns about his support, after defending on TV the transferring of terror suspects to countries where they might be tortured while serving under President George W. Bush. Instead, Brennan was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor, a position which did not require Senate confirmation.
  Brennan's 25 years with the CIA included work as a Near East and South Asia analyst, as station chief in Saudi Arabia, and as director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
context_section_description: Obama twice nominated Brennan to serve as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Morris Davis, a former Chief Prosecutor for the Guantanamo Military Commissions compared Brennan to Canadian Omar Khadr, who was convicted of "committing murder in violation of the law of war". He suggested that Brennan's role in targeting individuals for CIA missile strikes was no more authorized than the throwing of the grenade of which Khadr was accused.
  On February 27, 2013, the Senate Intelligence Committee postponed a vote on the confirmation of Brennan, expected to be taken the next day, until the following week. On March 5, the Intelligence Committee approved the nomination 12–3. The Senate was set to vote on Brennan's nomination on March 6, 2013. However, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul began a talking Senate filibuster prior to the vote, citing Obama and his administration's use of combat drones against Americans, stating "No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our country." Paul's filibuster continued for 13 hours, ending with the words: "I'm hopeful that we have drawn attention to this issue, that this issue will not fade away, and that the president will come up with a response." After the filibuster, Brennan was confirmed by a vote of 63–34. He was sworn into the office of CIA Director on March 8, 2013.
caption: Brennan being sworn in as CIA Director, March 8, 2013
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