CIA General Counsel: Role, Office, and Notable Controversies

The General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency is the agency’s chief legal officer and principal legal adviser to the CIA Director, responsible for judging whether proposed operations, covert actions, and internal decisions comply with the Constitution, federal statutes, and executive orders. The position is one of only three at the CIA that require Senate confirmation, alongside the Director and the Inspector General.¹ Joshua Simmons currently holds the office, confirmed by the Senate on January 6, 2026, on a 53–47 vote.²

What the General Counsel Does

At its core, the job is telling the CIA Director whether the agency can lawfully do what it wants to do. Former General Counsel Scott Muller described the role as a “navigator” who helps leadership avoid legal pitfalls while enabling the agency to operate aggressively within the boundaries of the law.³ Advice often has to be delivered under extreme time pressure during real-time operations, and the General Counsel is expected to remain independent while resisting the kind of risk aversion that would paralyze intelligence work.

The legal terrain is dense. The General Counsel interprets the National Security Act of 1947, the CIA Act of 1949, Executive Order 12333 governing intelligence activities, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and a web of related statutes and regulations. For covert actions involving lethal force, former General Counsel Stephen Preston has described a “four-box matrix” requiring authorization and compliance under both U.S. domestic law and the international law principles of necessity, distinction, proportionality, and humanity.¹

The office also handles the CIA’s relationship with Congress. It works with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, provides technical assistance on legislation, and negotiates provisions in intelligence authorization bills.⁴

Statutory Basis and Senate Confirmation

The position is codified at 50 U.S.C. § 3520, which designates the officeholder as the “chief legal officer of the Central Intelligence Agency.” The General Counsel must be appointed from civilian life by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, and performs “such functions as the Director may prescribe.”⁵

Senate confirmation was added to the CIA Act of 1949 in 1996. The change traced back to recommendations from the Church Committee in 1976 and later the Iran-Contra investigating committees, both of which argued that Senate vetting would strengthen the General Counsel’s independence of judgment and improve congressional oversight of intelligence activities.⁶

The Office of General Counsel

The General Counsel leads the Office of General Counsel, an independent office of attorneys, paralegals, and law librarians inside the CIA. The office has grown considerably. In the early 1970s the CIA employed only a handful of lawyers; by 2002 the number had reached roughly 100,³ and by the mid-2010s one General Counsel reported overseeing more than 150 attorneys.⁷

The office’s practice areas include operational law, intelligence support, government ethics, litigation, procurement and appropriations, personnel law, environmental and real estate law, privacy and civil liberties, security law, legislative affairs, and legal support for intelligence analysis and science and technology.⁸ More recent job postings also list FISA compliance, FOIA, government contracts, cyber and technology law, and tax law.⁹

How It Differs From the ODNI General Counsel

Since the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created in 2004, the CIA General Counsel has operated alongside a separate General Counsel at ODNI, who serves as chief legal officer for the broader intelligence community. The DNI General Counsel evaluates significant legal decisions across the community and can issue binding Intelligence Community Directives, but does not have “decisional authority to resolve” conflicting legal interpretations among agencies. When agencies disagree, the DNI General Counsel convenes the relevant general counsels to work through it.⁴ The CIA General Counsel remains responsible for the CIA’s own compliance with law.¹⁰

Joshua Simmons, the Current General Counsel

President Trump nominated Simmons in September 2025, and the Senate confirmed him on January 6, 2026.² He came to the role from the State Department, where he had served as Principal Deputy Legal Adviser managing a team of over 300 lawyers and staff. Before that he practiced international arbitration at Covington & Burling, Three Crowns, and Wiley Rein, where he was a partner and co-head of the Global Disputes practice, and taught as an adjunct at the University of Virginia School of Law.¹¹ He holds a law degree from Virginia and undergraduate degrees in economics and political science from the University of North Carolina.¹²

At his confirmation hearing, Simmons told senators he was committed to providing “objective, clear, and timely legal advice” while maintaining fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law, and emphasized distinguishing between what is legally authorized and what is a policy decision for the director and the president.¹³ CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Simmons “brings an impressive record and the expertise to advance the President’s priorities at the Agency.”¹⁴

The Ellis Interim

Simmons’s predecessor, Kate Heinzelman, left in January 2025, and the gap before Simmons was confirmed became its own controversy. In October 2025, the New York Times reported that CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis had demoted the career lawyer serving as acting General Counsel and installed himself in the role while continuing to serve as the agency’s second-ranking official.¹⁵ Ellis had been sworn in as Deputy Director on February 10, 2025, after previously serving as NSA General Counsel and as senior director for intelligence programs on the National Security Council.¹⁶

Legal ethics experts objected. Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU, called the arrangement “rather bizarre” and told the Times that a deputy director who also controls the agency’s legal judgments effectively advises himself. “If the deputy director wants to do something and needs a legal opinion about whether or not he can do it, he can’t advise himself. He must get the advice from someone who is independent.”¹⁵ The dual role ended with Simmons’s confirmation.

Controversies That Have Defined the Role

John Rizzo and Enhanced Interrogation

No CIA General Counsel has been more publicly associated with controversy than John Rizzo, who joined the agency as a lawyer in 1976 and twice served as acting General Counsel, from November 2001 to October 2002 and again from August 2004 through at least mid-2007.⁶ After September 11, 2001, Rizzo sought and obtained written authorization from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel for interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and confinement, that he later described as “terrifying” and “out of his realm.” The resulting August 1, 2002 legal opinion, widely known as the Bybee memo, approved 10 specific techniques for use on detainee Abu Zubaydah.¹⁷

The December 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program mentioned Rizzo by name more than 200 times and characterized the program as “brutal, mismanaged and ineffective.” Rizzo rejected those findings and defended both the program’s utility and its legal authorization.¹⁷ The report also found that the CIA made materially inaccurate representations to the Office of Legal Counsel about the techniques, their effects, and their effectiveness, and that the agency “rarely informed” the Justice Department when it discovered errors in those representations.¹⁸ Rizzo’s nomination to become permanent General Counsel was ultimately withdrawn following opposition from human rights organizations and members of Congress.

Stephen Preston and the bin Laden Raid

Stephen Preston served roughly four years as General Counsel beginning in 2009 and articulated the legal framework for major Obama-era counterterrorism operations, including the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which he described as having been “thoroughly lawyered” for compliance with both U.S. and international law.¹ Preston later served as General Counsel of the Department of Defense, where he stated that “under current law, waterboarding constitutes torture.”¹⁹

Courtney Simmons Elwood and the Ukraine Whistleblower

Courtney Simmons Elwood was confirmed as General Counsel on June 6, 2017.²⁰ On August 14, 2019, after a CIA officer flagged concerns about President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Elwood joined a conference call with the NSC’s legal adviser and the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. She intended the communication to serve as a criminal referral under rules requiring a report when there is a “reasonable basis” to believe a crime has been committed. The Justice Department declined to open an investigation, concluding the phone conversation did not constitute a formal written referral and that the president’s request did not meet the legal threshold under campaign finance law.²¹ The episode became part of the record leading to Trump’s first impeachment.

A Pending Change to Senate Confirmation

The confirmation requirement that has shaped the office since 1996 may not survive the current Congress. A provision in the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2026 would remove Senate confirmation for the general counsels of both the CIA and ODNI, letting the respective agency directors appoint them directly.²²

A coalition of civil liberties organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and the Center for Victims of Torture, opposed the change in a letter to congressional leadership, arguing it would “weaken transparency and public oversight” and reduce accountability for officials who shape policies on surveillance, detention, and interrogation.²² Senator Ron Wyden voted against the bill and called the provision “legislative malpractice,” warning that those who “make secret law will no longer be vetted or held accountable.”²³ The House and Senate were still conferencing on differences in the legislation as of available reporting, and the provision’s final status is unclear.

1
Lawfare. Remarks by CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston at Harvard Law School
2
U.S. Congress. PN499-11, Joshua Simmons, Nomination to Be General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency
3
Federation of American Scientists. Hearing on the Nomination of Scott W. Muller to Be General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency
4
U.S. Congress. Hearing on the Nominations of Robert S. Litt and Stephen W. Preston
5
Cornell Law Institute. 50 U.S. Code § 3520 – General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency
6
U.S. Congress. Hearing on the Nomination of John A. Rizzo to Be General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency
7
George Mason University National Security Institute. Caroline Krass
8
Central Intelligence Agency. General Counsel
9
USAJobs. CIA Office of General Counsel Job Listing
10
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. OGC – Who We Are
11
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Questionnaire for Completion by Presidential Nominees: Joshua Simmons
12
U.S. Department of State. Joshua Simmons
13
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Open Hearing: Nomination of Joshua Simmons to Be General Counsel
14
Central Intelligence Agency. DCIA John Ratcliffe Welcomes Josh Simmons as CIA General Counsel
15
New York Times. CIA Deputy Director Makes Himself Agency’s Top Legal Official
16
Federalist Society. Michael Ellis
17
PBS Frontline. John Rizzo: The Legal Case for Enhanced Interrogation
18
U.S. Congress. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program
19
U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. Advance Policy Questions for Stephen W. Preston
20
Central Intelligence Agency. Statement by CIA Director Mike Pompeo on the Confirmation of Courtney Simmons Elwood
21
NBC News. CIA’s Top Lawyer Made Criminal Referral on Whistleblower’s Complaint
22
Nextgov/FCW. Keep Senate Confirmation for Top Intelligence Lawyers, Civil Liberties Groups Urge
23
Office of Senator Ron Wyden. Wyden Votes No on FY26 Intelligence Authorization Act