Amaryllis Fox Kennedy’s journey from managing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 presidential campaign to actively campaigning for Donald Trump represents one of the more remarkable political transformations of the election cycle. Her transition, driven by deep concerns about intelligence agency overreach in domestic politics and media, has brought renewed attention to long-standing questions about the role of the CIA and other intelligence organizations in American democracy.
A Decade in the Shadows: Fox Kennedy’s CIA Background
Fox Kennedy served as a CIA Clandestine Service Officer from 2002 to 2010, focusing on counterterrorism and counterproliferation operations. Recruited while pursuing her master’s degree at Georgetown University after developing an algorithm for predicting terrorist activity, she operated undercover in 16 countries across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Her work included negotiating with arms dealers to purchase biological and chemical weapons on the global black market, helping locate prisoners held by terrorist groups, and debriefing dangerous detainees.
Her nonofficial cover meant she operated without diplomatic immunity, exposing her to significant risks of capture and imprisonment. After leaving the CIA in 2010, she founded a social media company and later worked as head of Twitter’s consumer products e-commerce division before publishing her controversial memoir, Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, in 2019.
The Tucker Carlson Interview: Unveiling Intelligence Community Concerns
In her October 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson, Fox Kennedy delivered a scathing critique of intelligence agencies’ domestic operations, drawing on her decade of insider experience. The wide-ranging conversation covered what she characterized as systemic abuses that threaten American sovereignty and democratic processes.
Intelligence Agencies Operating Within the Media
Fox Kennedy highlighted the troubling intersection of intelligence operations and media manipulation, suggesting that tactics developed for foreign influence operations have been turned inward against the American public. She referenced patterns of intelligence community involvement in shaping narratives through media channels, warning that “the same tactics used to manipulate foreign governments are now being applied within the United States”.
The Ukraine War and Geopolitical Manipulation
According to Fox Kennedy, the Ukraine conflict exemplifies how intelligence agencies prioritize geopolitical strategies over American domestic interests. She told Carlson: “We did this to control the $11 trillion of minerals under the Donbas. We did it to grind down the Russian war machine on the grift of Ukrainian teenagers”. She criticized the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars while American infrastructure crumbles, arguing that such policies drain resources from domestic needs to fuel foreign military operations.
Historical CIA Activities: The Church Committee’s Revelations
Fox Kennedy’s concerns echo findings from one of the most comprehensive investigations into intelligence agency misconduct in American history. The Church Committee, formally known as the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, conducted investigations from 1975 to 1976 that exposed a pattern of illegal and inappropriate activities by the CIA, FBI, and NSA.
CIA-Mafia Collaboration in Castro Assassination Attempts
The Church Committee uncovered extensive CIA collaboration with organized crime figures in plots to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Beginning in September 1960, the CIA recruited mobsters Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli, offering them $150,000 to kill Castro, though the gangsters declined payment, saying they would do it for free. The plots included poisoned cigars, exploding seashells, and hypodermic needles disguised as ballpoint pens.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy, President Kennedy’s brother, was briefed on the CIA-Mafia plots in 1962. According to testimony, Kennedy’s primary concern was not the assassination attempt itself, but that CIA involvement with the Mafia “would pose challenges for future prosecutions” of organized crime figures. As one CIA official recalled, Kennedy admonished: “If you are going to have anything to do with the Mafia again, come to me first”.
The Church Committee found no evidence of direct CIA involvement in President Kennedy’s assassination, but it determined that the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service had withheld critical information from the Warren Commission, which “fueled public demand for a new investigation”.
CIA and Drug Trafficking Networks
Fox Kennedy also addressed the “very blurry boundaries” between intelligence operations and drug trafficking, noting that “the cartels have kind of taken the mob’s role” in collaborating with intelligence agencies. She referenced well-documented historical patterns, including Air America and Iran-Contra.
During the Vietnam War, the CIA’s proprietary airline, Air America, was accused of transporting opium from remote Hmong villages in Laos. The Hmong, whom the CIA used to fight communist forces, depended on opium cultivation for income. Former CIA paramilitary officer Anthony Poshepny and former Air America pilots supported allegations that the airline transported opium, though the CIA has consistently denied knowingly transporting drugs.
In the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, multiple investigations documented CIA collaboration with drug traffickers in Central America. A 1989 Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications report found “substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zone on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras supporters throughout the region”. The report noted that U.S. officials “failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua”.
DEA field agent Hector Berrellez stated during a PBS Frontline investigation: “I believe that elements working for the CIA were involved in bringing drugs into the country…I know specifically that some of the CIA contract workers, meaning some of the pilots, in fact were bringing drugs into the U.S. and landing some of these drugs in government military air bases”.
The Hunter Biden Laptop Letter: Modern Election Interference
Fox Kennedy pointed to the October 2020 letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials as a contemporary example of intelligence community interference in domestic politics. The letter, released just days before the final 2020 presidential debate, claimed that the New York Post‘s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”.
The Blinken-Morell Connection
Congressional investigations revealed that the letter was not a spontaneous statement by concerned former officials, but rather a coordinated effort connected to the Biden campaign. Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA and one of the letter’s signatories, testified before Congress in April 2023 that the letter “would not have happened but for” a call he received from Antony Blinken, then a senior advisor to the Biden campaign.
On or around October 17, 2020, Blinken contacted Morell to discuss the laptop story. Morell testified that although Blinken’s outreach appeared to be “merely an inquiry” about his thoughts on the story, “it initiated the chain of events leading to the public statement’s release”. Morell further revealed that “one of his two objectives in releasing the statement was to support then-Vice President Biden in the debate and help him secure the election”.
CIA Awareness and Approval
The House Intelligence Committee’s investigation uncovered that the highest levels of the CIA, including then-Director Gina Haspel, were made aware of the letter before its publication. CIA Chief Operating Officer Andrew Makridis testified that he informed either Director Haspel or Deputy Director Vaughn Frederick Bishop about the statement’s impending release. Additionally, some signatories, including Morell, were on active contract with the CIA at the time they signed the statement.
The Biden campaign “helped to strategize about the public release of the statement” and requested that it be shared with The Washington Post. During the October 22, 2020, presidential debate, Joe Biden directly referenced the letter, stating: “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan, they have said that this has all the characteristics, four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage”.
By May 2023, no evidence had surfaced to support the Russian disinformation claim. FBI investigators had quickly concluded in 2019 “that the laptop was genuinely his and did not seem to have been tampered with or manipulated”. In January 2025, President Trump revoked the security clearances of all 51 signatories via executive order.
The EMP Threat: A Catastrophic Vulnerability
One of Fox Kennedy’s most alarming warnings in the Tucker Carlson interview concerned the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat and what she characterized as the Biden administration’s reversal of protective measures implemented under Trump.
The 2008 EMP Commission Findings
The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, chaired by Dr. William R. Graham, delivered its critical infrastructure assessment to Congress in 2008. The commission’s findings painted a dire picture of American vulnerability.
An EMP can be caused either naturally by severe solar storms or artificially by a high-altitude nuclear detonation. The commission concluded that such an event could disrupt, degrade, and damage technology and critical infrastructure systems across large geographic areas. The primary concern centered on the electric power grid, upon which virtually all other critical infrastructure depends.
Dr. Graham testified before the House Armed Services Committee in July 2008 about the potentially catastrophic consequences. When asked about long-term grid failure, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey stated: “There are essentially two estimates on how many people would die from hunger, from starvation, from lack of water, and from social disruption. One estimate is that within a year or so, two-thirds of the United States population would die. The other estimate is that within a year or so, 90% of the U.S. population would die”.
The commission noted that “the current vulnerability of our critical infrastructures can both invite and reward attack if not corrected,” but emphasized that “correction is feasible and well within the Nation’s means and resources to accomplish”. The estimated cost for hardening the grid’s critical nodes was approximately $2 billion to protect roughly 2,000 large and medium-sized transformers, a modest investment considering the stakes.
Trump’s Executive Orders on Grid Hardening
On March 26, 2019, President Trump signed Executive Order 13865, “Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses”. The order recognized that “an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) has the potential to disrupt, degrade, and damage technology and critical infrastructure systems” and that “human-made or naturally occurring EMPs can affect large geographic areas, disrupting elements critical to the Nation’s security and economic prosperity”.
The executive order directed a comprehensive, coordinated federal response with specific timelines:
- Within 90 days: Identify national critical functions and associated priority critical infrastructure most at risk from EMP
- Within 180 days: Review test data and identify gaps regarding EMP effects on critical infrastructure
- Within 1 year: Assess which critical infrastructure systems are most vulnerable to EMP effects
- Develop quantitative benchmarks for EMP physical characteristics
- Submit reports every 2 years analyzing technology options to improve infrastructure resilience
- Within 90 days of completing assessments: Develop a plan to mitigate EMP effects on vulnerable priority infrastructure
On May 1, 2020, Trump issued a second executive order, 13920, “Securing the United States Bulk-Power System”. This order addressed foreign adversary threats to the electrical grid, prohibiting the acquisition, importation, transfer, or installation of bulk-power system electric equipment from foreign adversaries that posed national security risks. The order declared a national emergency, finding that “foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system”.
Biden’s Suspension and the Climate Change Rationale
On January 20, 2021, his first day in office, President Biden signed Executive Order 13990, “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis”. This order suspended Executive Order 13920 for 90 days, directing the Secretary of Energy and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to “jointly consider whether to recommend that a replacement order be issued”.
The stated rationale for Biden’s actions centered on environmental policy and climate change. Executive Order 13990 explicitly declared it the policy of the administration “to listen to the science; to improve public health and protect our environment…to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; to bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change”. The order directed all federal agencies to “immediately review and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, take action to address the promulgation of Federal regulations and other actions during the last 4 years that conflict with these important national objectives”.
The order positioned climate change as the paramount threat: “The world must be put on a sustainable climate pathway to protect Americans and the domestic economy from harmful climate impacts”. It revoked the Keystone XL pipeline permit, placed a temporary moratorium on oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and directed agencies to revise or rescind numerous Trump-era environmental regulations.
Critics argued that the 90-day suspension of the bulk-power system order left critical infrastructure vulnerable during the review period. While the order’s scope was eventually narrowed to focus primarily on defense-critical electric infrastructure rather than the entire interstate bulk-power grid, the comprehensive approach Trump had initiated faced significant delays.
Fox Kennedy told Carlson that Biden “reversed Trump’s EMP preparedness measures,” expressing concern that this increased vulnerability “amid rising geopolitical tensions”. The suspension effectively halted momentum on grid hardening initiatives at a time when the EMP Commission had warned of catastrophic consequences and identified cost-effective solutions.
The Transition from Kennedy to Trump: Motivations and Ideology
Fox Kennedy’s journey from managing RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign to actively supporting Trump reflected her assessment that intelligence agency overreach posed an existential threat to American democracy.
The End of Kennedy’s Campaign
By August 2024, RFK Jr.’s independent presidential campaign faced mounting challenges. His polling numbers had dropped from around 10% nationally to closer to 5%, fundraising had dried up with only $3.9 million in cash against nearly $3.5 million in debts, and legal challenges were keeping him off ballots in key states. Kennedy’s campaign manager, Amaryllis Fox, had helped coordinate discussions with both the Trump and Harris campaigns about potential collaboration.
On August 23, 2024, Kennedy announced he was suspending his campaign and endorsing Trump, citing shared concerns about “the war on our children,” the war in Ukraine, and free speech. Trump, speaking at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, with Kennedy present, promised to appoint an independent commission to investigate assassination attempts and release all remaining documents about President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination.
Intelligence Overreach as Core Motivation
In her Tucker Carlson interview, Fox Kennedy articulated her central concern: intelligence agencies had become a threat to U.S. sovereignty through their domestic political operations. She described a pattern where “the same tactics used to manipulate foreign governments are now being applied within the United States,” eroding democratic principles and civil liberties.
She warned about censorship and its implications for free speech, arguing that “the current political climate has fostered an environment where dissenting voices are silenced, particularly those that challenge the prevailing narratives promoted by the government and mainstream media”. Fox Kennedy drew parallels between American censorship practices and tactics employed by authoritarian regimes, warning that “the normalization of censorship can lead to a chilling effect on free expression”.
Intelligence Community Reform as a Personal Mission
Despite initial reports that RFK Jr. was pushing for Fox Kennedy to be appointed CIA deputy director to help declassify JFK assassination files, Senate opposition from key Republicans including Senator Tom Cotton ultimately blocked her consideration. Cotton took issue with her previous advocacy for dialogue with adversaries and her publication of her CIA memoir without proper pre-publication review.
Instead, Fox Kennedy was appointed to President Trump’s Intelligence Advisory Board in February 2025, along with positions as Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Policy and Capabilities and Associate Director for Intelligence and International Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget. From these positions, she continues to advocate for transparency regarding historical intelligence operations and accountability for contemporary abuses.
Conclusion: A Warning About Power and Accountability
Amaryllis Fox Kennedy’s transition from managing a Kennedy presidential campaign to serving in the Trump administration represents more than a political realignment, it embodies a fundamental critique of intelligence agency power in American democracy. Drawing on her decade of CIA experience, the declassified findings of the Church Committee, and contemporary examples like the Hunter Biden laptop letter, she has made the case that intelligence community overreach in domestic politics and media represents a core threat to U.S. sovereignty.
The historical record supports her concerns about blurred lines between intelligence operations and democratic processes. From CIA collaboration with organized crime in the 1960s to drug trafficking connections during the Cold War to election interference in 2020, the pattern reveals institutions operating beyond meaningful oversight. Combined with warnings about critical infrastructure vulnerability, such as the EMP threat that experts estimate could kill up to 90% of the population within a year, and policy reversals that deprioritize such preparedness, Fox Kennedy’s alarm about institutional priorities resonates with documented evidence.
Whether her advocacy for transparency and accountability will succeed in reforming intelligence community practices remains to be seen. But her insider perspective, combined with extensive historical documentation of intelligence agency abuses, ensures these questions will remain central to debates about American democracy, national security, and the proper limits of unaccountable power in a free society.
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