In February 2018, NBC News and MSNBC hired former CIA Director John Brennan as a paid senior national security and intelligence analyst, making him one of two former intelligence chiefs simultaneously serving as cable news commentators (alongside James Clapper at CNN). Brennan had served as CIA Director from March 2013 to January 2017, overseeing the agency's drone program, cyber operations, and global human intelligence network. His transition to paid media commentary meant that a former CIA director was now shaping public discourse about intelligence operations on a daily basis, while maintaining financial relationships with private intelligence and consulting firms.
Brennan's post-CIA private sector career was extensive and multifaceted. He joined WestExec Advisors as a principal, a firm founded in 2017 by Antony Blinken, Michèle Flournoy, and other former Obama administration officials. WestExec's business model was explicitly built on converting government relationships into consulting revenue — advising corporations on "strategy and geopolitical risk" and helping clients "navigate the world's most pressing challenges." The firm would become notorious as a revolving-door vehicle when, less than six months into the Biden administration, more than 15 WestExec consultants had fanned out across the White House, State Department, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement institutions. Blinken became Secretary of State; Avril Haines, another WestExec consultant, became Director of National Intelligence.
Brennan also served as a senior advisor at McKinsey & Company and as a consultant for Kissinger Associates, layering corporate advisory roles that leveraged his intelligence community expertise. He held academic positions as a Distinguished Non-Resident Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin and a Distinguished Fellow at Fordham Law School's Center on National Security. Notably, this was not Brennan's first turn through the revolving door: between his government intelligence career and the CIA directorship, he had served as CEO of The Analysis Corporation (TAC), a private intelligence contractor, and chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), an industry association for intelligence contractors.
The WestExec connection illuminated a particularly consequential dimension of the revolving door: former officials not merely profiting from their government service, but creating the organizational infrastructure through which future officials would cycle between government and the private sector. WestExec did not disclose its client list, shielding corporate relationships behind non-disclosure agreements, and its partners carefully avoided registering as lobbyists or foreign agents — preserving their eligibility for seamless return to government positions.