page_title: Leon Panetta
section_title: Nomination
hierarchical_section_title: Leon Panetta / Political career / Director of the CIA / Nomination
caption_attribution_description: President Barack Obama speaks to CIA employees at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia about why he decided to change interrogation policy for the United States. CIA Director Leon Panetta is to Obama's right.
context_page_description: Leon Edward Panetta is an American politician who has served in several different public office positions, including the Secretary of Defense, Director of the CIA, White House Chief of Staff, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and as a U.S. Representative from California. A Democrat, Panetta was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993, served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1994, and as President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997. He co-founded the Panetta Institute for Public Policy and served as a Distinguished Scholar to Chancellor Charles B. Reed of the California State University System and as a professor of public policy at Santa Clara University.
  In January 2009, newly elected President Barack Obama nominated Panetta for the post of CIA Director. Panetta was confirmed by the full Senate in February 2009. As director of the CIA, Panetta oversaw the operation that brought down international terrorist Osama bin Laden. On April 28, 2011, Obama announced the nomination of Panetta as Defense Secretary, to replace the retiring Robert Gates.
context_section_description: On January 5, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Panetta to the post of Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
  At the time of his selection, journalists and politicians raised concerns about Panetta's limited experience in intelligence, aside from his two-year service as a military intelligence officer in the 1960s. California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, expressed concerns that she was not consulted about the Panetta appointment and stated her belief that "the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."
  Former CIA officer Ishmael Jones stated that Panetta was a wise choice, because of his close personal connection to the President and lack of exposure to the CIA bureaucracy. Also, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said that Panetta did have exposure to intelligence operations as Director of the OMB and as Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, where he "sat in on the daily intelligence briefings as chief of staff, and he reviewed the nation's most secret intelligence-collection and covert-action programs in his previous post as director of the Office of Management and Budget".
  On February 12, 2009, Panetta was confirmed in the full Senate by voice vote.
caption: President Barack Obama speaks to CIA employees at CIA Headquarters in Langley, April 20, 2009
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