At least she has some qualifications:
Amaryllis Fox Kennedy — a former undercover CIA operative who managed her father-in-law Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign — met this week in Washington with President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for CIA director, John Ratcliffe, and others about a possible job as deputy director of the spy agency, according to people briefed on the discussions.
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Trump has privately voiced support for appointing Fox Kennedy to a job in national security, including the deputy director post at the CIA, according to multiple people familiar with the comments, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
But her quest has run into opposition from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), who is expected to take the gavel next year as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and some former members of the intelligence community, according to multiple people briefed on the conversations. A person familiar with the situation said Fox Kennedy had offered to meet with Cotton to discuss his concerns.
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Fox Kennedy posted a broadside Thursday on X describing her unnamed opponents for a position at the CIA as being complicit in a system that had weakened U.S. intelligence collection abilities.
Follow Transition to 47
“A Kennedy at CIA, they fret. No more weaponization of our intelligence services, they complain. She opposes censorship, they whine. She doesn’t believe in arming terrorists, they moan. She thinks coups and wars should be avoided, they cry. She believes in the President, they despair. A DJT [Donald J. Trump] loyalist at Langley, they wail. She must be stopped at all costs!” she wrote. “These same ‘concerned’ leaders have overseen the greatest degradation of our humint capabilities in CIA’s history. On their watch, the world has erupted into violence.”
Cotton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
End of carousel
Trump has repeatedly told others he has been impressed with Fox Kennedy, whom he got to know better after the election at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, where she has attended personnel meetings and dined while assisting her father-in-law, who has been named by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“President-Elect Trump is making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration. Those decisions will be announced when they are made,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition team, said in a statement.
Trump has given Ratcliffe broad leeway to choose his own team, according to a person briefed on the preparations. Other roles, including a post at the National Security Council or at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, have been discussed for Fox Kennedy, a second person briefed on the process said.
Fox Kennedy married Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s son, Bobby Kennedy III, in 2018. She started working on her father-in-law’s presidential campaign as an adviser in 2023. She took over as campaign manager later in the year and played a role in early discussions this summer about merging the Kennedy campaign with Trump’s operation with a focus on improving the nation’s health-care system.
Since the election, Fox Kennedy has stepped back from day-to-day management of her father-in-law’s efforts, but she has continued to advise him ahead of a coming trip to Washington to meet with senators about his planned nomination to Health and Human Services. The elder Kennedy has spoken highly of Fox Kennedy’s talents and supports her appointment, according to people involved in the discussions.
In recent months, Fox Kennedy has spoken with former intelligence officials about her desire to refocus the agency back on intelligence collection. The discussions have tapped into frustrations among some former intelligence officials about bureaucratic changes to how the agency operates in recent decades.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with her. She knows what she is doing,” said John Maguire, a former deputy chief of training in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations who helped train Fox Kennedy and has spoken with her more recently. “The officer corps of doer officers in the system and outside the system is fully supportive of bringing her in.”
“The people who are resisting her are the mattress mice,” he added, a reference to parts of the agency’s bureaucracy who operate with low risk tolerance from desk jobs. “You need a clandestine service that works. And putting analytical people in charge of operations overseas is a reckless move.”
She has been a critic of the agency leadership, writing a memoir called “Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA” that detailed her work overseas gathering intelligence, including a description of posing as an art dealer to gather information. Fox Kennedy, who says she left the CIA in 2010, also has a close relationship with Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii whom Trump has tapped to be director of national intelligence.
In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson — the former Fox News host and podcaster who is also critical of the intelligence leadership and who has spent time recently at Mar-a-Lago — she was critical of the CIA’s historic role in shaping news coverage and intervening in foreign affairs.
“Where they get into tremendous trouble … is when rather than going in and actually reporting what is happening in every corner of the world, they are making it happen,” Fox Kennedy said about the CIA on Carlson’s podcast. “Rather than reporting that a coup is about to take place, you know for absolute sure it is about to take place. And that has not worked out in 100 percent of cases, as far as I can tell.”
During his first term, Trump suggested that he would release remaining classified files about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Trump later said former secretary of state and CIA director Mike Pompeo cautioned him against the release. Again this year, Trump committed to releasing the information, a move that has been supported by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Fox Kennedy.
“If I win I’m just going to open them up,” Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan weeks before winning reelection this year.
Other former intelligence officials have been dismissive of Fox Kennedy’s qualifications and critical of her decision to publish her memoir despite ongoing disputes with the CIA about whether information should be publicly disclosed. “It would be very hard for the agencies to enforce their long-standing and appropriate rules on writings — books, articles, anything you publish if the deputy CIA director was someone who flaunted the rules,” said another former senior intelligence official.
Amaryllis Fox Kennedy — a former undercover CIA operative who managed her father-in-law Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign — met this week in Washington with President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for CIA director, John Ratcliffe, and others about a possible job as deputy director of the spy agency, according to people briefed on the discussions.
Get the latest election news and resultsTrump has privately voiced support for appointing Fox Kennedy to a job in national security, including the deputy director post at the CIA, according to multiple people familiar with the comments, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
But her quest has run into opposition from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), who is expected to take the gavel next year as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and some former members of the intelligence community, according to multiple people briefed on the conversations. A person familiar with the situation said Fox Kennedy had offered to meet with Cotton to discuss his concerns.
ADVERTISING
Fox Kennedy posted a broadside Thursday on X describing her unnamed opponents for a position at the CIA as being complicit in a system that had weakened U.S. intelligence collection abilities.
Follow Transition to 47
“A Kennedy at CIA, they fret. No more weaponization of our intelligence services, they complain. She opposes censorship, they whine. She doesn’t believe in arming terrorists, they moan. She thinks coups and wars should be avoided, they cry. She believes in the President, they despair. A DJT [Donald J. Trump] loyalist at Langley, they wail. She must be stopped at all costs!” she wrote. “These same ‘concerned’ leaders have overseen the greatest degradation of our humint capabilities in CIA’s history. On their watch, the world has erupted into violence.”
Cotton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
End of carousel
Trump has repeatedly told others he has been impressed with Fox Kennedy, whom he got to know better after the election at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, where she has attended personnel meetings and dined while assisting her father-in-law, who has been named by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“President-Elect Trump is making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration. Those decisions will be announced when they are made,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition team, said in a statement.
Trump has given Ratcliffe broad leeway to choose his own team, according to a person briefed on the preparations. Other roles, including a post at the National Security Council or at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, have been discussed for Fox Kennedy, a second person briefed on the process said.
Fox Kennedy married Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s son, Bobby Kennedy III, in 2018. She started working on her father-in-law’s presidential campaign as an adviser in 2023. She took over as campaign manager later in the year and played a role in early discussions this summer about merging the Kennedy campaign with Trump’s operation with a focus on improving the nation’s health-care system.
Since the election, Fox Kennedy has stepped back from day-to-day management of her father-in-law’s efforts, but she has continued to advise him ahead of a coming trip to Washington to meet with senators about his planned nomination to Health and Human Services. The elder Kennedy has spoken highly of Fox Kennedy’s talents and supports her appointment, according to people involved in the discussions.
In recent months, Fox Kennedy has spoken with former intelligence officials about her desire to refocus the agency back on intelligence collection. The discussions have tapped into frustrations among some former intelligence officials about bureaucratic changes to how the agency operates in recent decades.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with her. She knows what she is doing,” said John Maguire, a former deputy chief of training in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations who helped train Fox Kennedy and has spoken with her more recently. “The officer corps of doer officers in the system and outside the system is fully supportive of bringing her in.”
“The people who are resisting her are the mattress mice,” he added, a reference to parts of the agency’s bureaucracy who operate with low risk tolerance from desk jobs. “You need a clandestine service that works. And putting analytical people in charge of operations overseas is a reckless move.”
She has been a critic of the agency leadership, writing a memoir called “Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA” that detailed her work overseas gathering intelligence, including a description of posing as an art dealer to gather information. Fox Kennedy, who says she left the CIA in 2010, also has a close relationship with Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii whom Trump has tapped to be director of national intelligence.
In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson — the former Fox News host and podcaster who is also critical of the intelligence leadership and who has spent time recently at Mar-a-Lago — she was critical of the CIA’s historic role in shaping news coverage and intervening in foreign affairs.
“Where they get into tremendous trouble … is when rather than going in and actually reporting what is happening in every corner of the world, they are making it happen,” Fox Kennedy said about the CIA on Carlson’s podcast. “Rather than reporting that a coup is about to take place, you know for absolute sure it is about to take place. And that has not worked out in 100 percent of cases, as far as I can tell.”
During his first term, Trump suggested that he would release remaining classified files about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Trump later said former secretary of state and CIA director Mike Pompeo cautioned him against the release. Again this year, Trump committed to releasing the information, a move that has been supported by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Fox Kennedy.
“If I win I’m just going to open them up,” Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan weeks before winning reelection this year.
Other former intelligence officials have been dismissive of Fox Kennedy’s qualifications and critical of her decision to publish her memoir despite ongoing disputes with the CIA about whether information should be publicly disclosed. “It would be very hard for the agencies to enforce their long-standing and appropriate rules on writings — books, articles, anything you publish if the deputy CIA director was someone who flaunted the rules,” said another former senior intelligence official.
