President's Daily Brief

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The President's Daily Brief^[1] (PDB), sometimes incorrectly referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top secret document produced each morning for the President of the United States. Responsibility for producing the PDB — which was traditionally held by the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — was transferred to the new Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, after he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 21, 2005.^[2]

The PDB is intended to provide the president with new international intelligence warranting attention and analysis of sensitive international situations. The CIA produced the first PDB in 1964, though it had of course produced briefs for the president before. Although the production and coordination of the PDB was a CIA responsibility, other members of the US intelligence community reviewed articles (the "coordination" process) and were free to write and submit articles for inclusion. While the name of the PDB implies exclusivity, it has historically been briefed to other high officials. The distribution list has varied over time, but has always or almost always included the Secretaries of State and Defense and the National Security Advisor. Rarely, special editions of the PDB have actually been "for the President's eyes only," with further dissemination of the information contained left to the President's discretion. Production of the PDB is closely linked to that of another publication, historically called the National Intelligence Daily, that contains many of the same items but is distributed considerably more widely than the PDB. Former Presidents are entitled to receive the PDB, if they so desire, only after the sitting President actually receives his daily briefing.

George Tenet considered the PDB so sensitive that in July 2000 he took the position with the National Archives and Records Administration that none of them could be released for publication "no matter how old or historically significant it may be."^[3]

Part of the front page of the August 6, 2001 PDB.

During a briefing on May 21, 2002, Ari Fleischer, former White House Press Secretary, characterized the PDB as "the most highly sensitized classified document in the government."^[4]

The PDB came under increased public awareness during testimony in front of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which was convened in 2004 to analyze the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States of America. On April 8, 2004, after testimony by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, the Commission renewed calls for the declassification of a PDB from August 6, 2001, entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US. Two days later, the White House complied, and released the document with minimal redactions.