National intelligence director has submitted his resignation

A statement released by his office Thursday said Clapper will serve until President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20.

Federal Bureau of Investigations Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper announced his resignation on Wednesday, saying that it “felt pretty good” after more than 50 years of service.

Through these final months in the job, Clapper’s agencies have tracked and battled a sophisticated operation by the Russian government to influence the USA presidential election. Most notably was the time he gave a false testimony under oath about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) domestic surveillance programs to a U.S. senate committee.

Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who is on President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team for intelligence, launched directly into questions after opening statements without referencing Clapper’s resignation.

The next Director of National Intelligence will be allowed to control the scope and frequency at which United States intelligence spies on people domestically and overseas.

Snowden and his colleagues had discussed the routine deception around the breadth of the NSA’s spying many times, so it wasn’t surprising to him when they had little reaction to Clapper’s testimony.

He took the helm overseeing 17 intelligence agencies in 2010 and served throughout the majority of Obama’s presidency.

One name circulating as a replacement for Clapper was former Defense Intelligence Agency director and former deputy director of national intelligence Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess.

Clapper’s resignation comes at a conspicuous time in the horse race for top posts in the the incoming administration.

Mr Clapper has been an outspoken critic of Russian Federation, laying the blame for the hacking of Democratic Party computers during the USA election at the door of Vladimir Putin’s government.

Clapper has only hinted at his views of Trump, saying at a security conference in July that the divisive rhetoric of the presidential campaign had anxious foreign allies.

“Not wittingly”, Clapper said.

The position was created in 2005 as part of an overhaul of U.S. intelligence agencies based on recommendations by the 9/11 Commission.

In one of his last appearances on Capitol Hill, Clapper also defended the administration’s response to allegations that intelligence officials at the U.S. Central Command pressured analysts to discard information that reflected poorly on the war effort in Iraq and Syria.

James Clapper, U.S. Director of National Intelligence, pauses while speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations, October 25, 2016 in New York City.