Rumors are spreading that the U.S. Supreme Court will vote 5-4 to rule that a U.S. president cannot be prosecuted for anything he does while he is president. Some Democrats are suggesting that Joe Biden bring a gun to his first debate with Donald Trump. If he shoots Trump, he would be immune, but if Trump shoots Biden he would be prosecuted because he is not a sitting president.   read more

Early in his tenure as chief, Lengyel was faced with the controversy over re-enlistment bonus clawbacks from National Guard members. He said Congress had been informed of the clawbacks as early as 2012 but had declined to pass legislation that would have stopped them. Lengyel is from an Air Force family. His father, Lauren, was also an Air Force pilot and was shot down over Vietnam in August 1967. He was captured and held in a North Vietnamese prison camp until 1973.   read more

Thomas took his unit to Afghanistan three months after the 9/11 attacks and spent much of 12 years in Afghanistan. He then served 15 months in Iraq and, while there, survived a car-bomb attack on his armored vehicle. In 2013, Thomas went to work at the Central Intelligence Agency as its associate director of military affairs. The following year, he took over as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., the unit that oversees secret counter-terrorism units.   read more

Stewart is the first Marine, and the first African-American, to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, he earned master’s degrees, including in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College. His first specialty was tanks, but he moved into signals intelligence--the gathering of data from radio transmissions. Since taking over DIA, Stewart said he wants to build an information system that will facilitate sharing of data among intelligence services.   read more

Busch grew up in different places around the world, including five years in Saudi Arabia, while his father worked for airlines. He was recruited to the Air Force Academy to play basketball—at 6-foot-10, he was the Falcons’ center—and graduated from there with a B.S. degree. After earning his second master’s degree, Busch moved into logistics. His assignments were at the Defense Logistics Agency, Ogden Air Logistics Center, and at the Propulsion Management Center at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.   read more

Durand started with the DTRA in 2003 as deputy associate director for business enterprise, working on the business side of the agency dedicated to stopping weapons of mass destruction. In 2007, she was made associate director, business enterprise/component acquisition executive and in 2012, Durand was made the agency’s executive director. She held that post until being named acting director in 2016.   read more

Price has long been a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a right-wing group that has fought against anti-smoking campaigns; opposed mandatory vaccinations; linked vaccines to autism and abortion to breast cancer, in both cases without medical evidence; and denied that the HIV virus causes AIDS. In the Georgia Senate, he advocated for caps on medical malpractice awards and fought efforts to make it easier for Georgia’s undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses.   read more

By 2000, Lynn was in the Network Management Division in the Pentagon. After the 9/11 attacks, Lynn was made division chief for the Commander in Chief for Operations and Support Division. In 2002, he took command of the 3rd Signal Brigade and was deployed to Iraq. Lynn returned to the U.S. and in 2005 moved into the office of the Army’s Chief Information Officer and became executive officer to the CIO.   read more

O'Reilly took a year off from his post at NRO to attend the National War College, earning his degree and returning to OSI as Deputy Executive Director. While in that post, he served for a few months in the Joint Counterintelligence Unit in Kabul, Afghanistan. In 2014, he was made the Defense Department’s Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, with responsibility for international operations, national security and cyber security. He held that post until taking over at DCIS.   read more

Among his achievements was his documentation of George W. Bush administration firings of four U.S. Attorneys for partisan reasons and its packing of the Civil Rights Division with political appointees. His office also investigated the FBI’s handling of Zacarias Moussaoui, who had enrolled in a flight school as part of the 9/11 terror plot. Fine’s office was critical of the bureau for not taking the threat posed by Moussaoui seriously.   read more

After being made deputy commanding general of the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss, Texas. Lundy was sent in 2012 to Fort Leavenworth as deputy commanding general of the Combined Arms Center-Training. He advocated for a Star Trek-like “Holodeck” training system for soldiers. Beginning in 2014, Lundy was put in charge of Army aviation at Fort Rucker. While there, he said the Army should de-emphasize drones and put more resources into manned aviation.   read more

In 2006 Bales was named deputy auditor in Forces and Financial Audits. Five years later she was made deputy director of DCAA, a post she held until being elevated to the top spot. Bales and the DCAA aided in the prosecution of high-ranking Navy officers and others in the “Fat Leonard” bribery scandal, in which a rear admiral pleaded guilty to accepting favors from Leonard Glenn Francis, who pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribing Naval officers to use U.S. ship facilities in Asia.   read more

Hyatt attended Sidwell Friends School, where many children of presidents, other government figures and those in the media have gone. In 1983 he worked for Bain & Co. in Boston, London and Munich, then in 1989 became a principal and partner in a conflict management group. He founded a similar firm, CMI New York, in 1997. Among other things, that company trained negotiators involved in constitutional talks between the old South African government and the African National Congress.   read more

Beginning in 2001, McBride was a grants specialist for Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas). In 2003, he was named Lincoln’s senior legislative assistant. McBride moved to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry in 2009 as a senior staffer, where he remained until 2015.   read more

In 1994, Bender was named managing director for entertainment, media and communications for Price Waterhouse. He returned to federal services in 2006 as director of enterprise architecture for the Internal Revenue Service. In 2010, he moved over to the U.S. Census Bureau as chief technology officer. There, he tried to recreate a Silicon Valley atmosphere for his developers in the hope of bringing more innovative ideas to the agency. He remained there until moving to the NTIS.   read more

Starmer joined the USDA in 2011, initially helping develop the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” program. In 2015, she was made a senior adviser to Secretary Tom Vilsack. Not long after starting at the Agricultural Marketing Service, Starmer had to defuse a controversy when the American Egg Board was accused of trying to thwart the sales of an eggless mayonnaise. The head of the egg board stepped down and was replaced by Starmer’s predecessor at the AMS, Anne Alonzo.   read more

Almanza’s work impressed then-Under Secretary for Food Safety Richard Raymond, who asked Almanza to come work for him in Washington as FSIS administrator. When Almanza was named deputy under secretary, he kept his responsibilities as FSIS administrator despite no longer having the official position. In 2015, Almanza instituted a new poultry inspection system that puts much of the responsibility for ensuring food safety in the hands of the processors, rather than the USDA.   read more