A Rotating Group of Intelligence Analysts Will Brief President Biden



WASHINGTON — A veteran C.I.A. analyst who had led President Biden’s in-person briefings in the opening days of the administration is no longer doing so, intelligence officials said Saturday.

The duties of the briefer typically included coordinating work across 18 intelligence agencies, in what is known as mission integration, and overseeing the assembly of the written intelligence document delivered to the White House each day. In a shift from previous administrations, the job of leading the in-person briefing will be distinct from the other responsibilities and divided among various people.

The veteran analyst, Morgan Muir, is still set to take over as director of mission integration, a top post in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, succeeding Beth Sanner, who was the lead briefer for President Donald J. Trump. As the director of mission integration, Mr. Muir will put together what is known as the President’s Daily Brief, or P.D.B., from various reports from across the intelligence community, but he will no longer lead the in-person briefings.

In his new role, Mr. Muir will oversee the agency’s efforts to integrate the intelligence community’s activities “from collection to analysis, including the interagency P.D.B. process,” said Amanda J. Schoch, the spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The appointment of Mr. Muir as Mr. Biden’s briefer last month was unusual because it was his second tour in that job, the only time someone had returned to the post under a new administration. He had served as one of George W. Bush’s briefers midway through his presidency.

The New York Times earlier reported that Mr. Muir was set to become the lead briefer, but at the time intelligence officials said that the director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, was still determining the final format of the briefing sessions and that additional briefers would work with Mr. Biden. Officials also said at the time that there had been no final decision about whether to split briefing duties from the broader responsibilities of the director of mission integration.

Some officials in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have long pushed to delegate those tasks to different people.

But in recent days, Ms. Haines decided to bring in a series of expert briefers to lead the sessions in the Oval Office, Ms. Schoch said. Ms. Haines continues to participate in those meetings.

On Saturday, BuzzFeed News reported that in 2013, Mr. Muir, then a senior C.I.A. analyst, led a delegation from the agency in tense talks with Senate Intelligence Committee staff members putting together what would become the report on the agency’s torture program. The article quoted Daniel J. Jones, one of the lead committee staff members at the time, saying that Mr. Muir had defended the value of the C.I.A.’s torture program in private talks with Senate aides.

Mr. Jones did not immediately return a request for comment.

The Senate report issued in 2014, a sweeping indictment of the C.I.A., outlined abuses and torture by the agency in interrogating terrorism suspects in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and a pattern of misleading Congress and the White House about it.

While the report remains a sore point with many former senior agency officials, who disagree with its conclusions and characterization, a number of senators have expressed frustration that some top agency officials continue to question the report.

After the publication of the BuzzFeed article, two intelligence officials insisted the criticism of Mr. Muir’s interactions with the Senate committee had nothing to do with the decision to change how Mr. Biden was being briefed.

Ms. Schoch said Ms. Haines remained “confident in Morgan’s steady leadership.”

“Morgan Muir is a widely respected intelligence officer who has demonstrated the highest standards of integrity and professionalism throughout his career,” Ms. Muir said.