Michael Ellis Biography
Michael Ellis is the CIA deputy director and a former lead attorney for Republican congressman Devin Nunes. He was also one of the principal staffers who compiled the 2016 bipartisan House Intelligence Committee report on the Snowden leaks.
He has also previously served as the General Counsel at Rumble as well as General Counsel of the National Security Agency (NSA) and in several roles with the Trump (first presidential term) administration including Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council (NSC).
He was also a Law Clerk to Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Judge Amul Thapar of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
He is a recipient of the Secretary of Defense Outstanding Public Service Award, the National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation, and the Joint Service Commendation Medal (with oak leaf cluster). He was also named Forbes Top 30 Under 30 for Law & Policy.
Michael Ellis Education
Ellis earned his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College where he served as the editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth Review. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Michael Ellis Age and Family
Michael was born in 1984 to Mary E. Dunbar and Alan A. Ellis. His mother is a former statistical consultant, focusing on affirmative action employment data while his father was a manager for Verizon, the telecommunications company in New York. He helped oversee federal government contracts.
Michael Ellis Wife
Ellis married his wife Dr. Katherine Helen Racicot in July 2011 at Gilford Community Church in Gilford, N.H. The couple met at Dartmouth, where they both studied and graduated, she cum laude and he summa cum laude. She holds a medical degree from the Uniformed Services University. She completed her Emergency Medicine residency at Wright State University.
Katherine is a board certified emergency medicine physician. She is a critical care physician at Air National Guard as well as an emergency medicine physician at US Acute Care Solutions. She previously served as a captain and emergency medicine physician in the United States Air Force.
He Served in the Navy
Michael served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer. His roles included the Defense Attaché System, the U.S. Africa Command intelligence directorate, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Joint Staff intelligence directorate.
Ellis was general counsel of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Ellis was the senior attorney for the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence where he drafted and reviewed legislation related to FISA, including the USA FREEDOM Act, annual intelligence authorization acts, and cybersecurity, including the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015.
In addition, he led multiple congressional investigations, including the committee’s bipartisan review of unauthorized disclosures of a former NSA contractor and a bipartisan investigation of a joint NSA-National Reconnaissance Office program.
Michael Ellis Trump
Michael is a Trump Loyalist. During Trump’s first presidential term, he served in several roles including the deputy assistant to the president and senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council (NSC). In this role, he planned, directed, and coordinated policies and programs across the U.S. intelligence community. He advised senior White House officials on some of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence activities, including covert action, sensitive activities, counterterrorism and cyber operations, and technical intelligence.
He served as the special assistant to the president, senior associate counsel to the president, and deputy NSC legal advisor from 2017 to 2020. He provided advice to White House officials and coordinated the views of senior executive branch lawyers on a wide variety of issues, including uses of force, international agreements, diplomatic and foreign policy initiatives, intelligence activities, cybersecurity, litigation related to national security, congressional oversight, and electronic surveillance, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the Pen Register and Trap and Trace statute, and Executive Order 12333.
Michael worked as NSA General Counsel but quit after 3 months
In 2017, Ellis joined the National Security Council as a lawyer. In November 2020, a few months before Trump left office, Ellis was appointed as general counsel at National Security Agency. In January the acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller gave Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, the spy agency’s director, until 6 p.m. on Saturday to install Michael Ellis as its general counsel. His appointment raised concerns among Democrats and critics who pointed his lack of experience in running a large legal team.
On January 20, he was placed on administrative leave as his appointmet was under investigation by the Defense Department Inspector General. There was also an allegation he mishandled classified information.
On April 16, 2021 he resigned after having been sidelined for three months. In his resignation letter he wrote in parts ““I have been on administrative leave for nearly three months without any explanation or updates, and there is no sign that NSA will attempt to resolve the issue. I therefore resign my position, effective immediately.”
In October 2021, the Pentagon’s inspector general found no undue influence in Michael Ellis’s appointment but also found that N.S.A.’s leadership acted appropriately in suspending him because of two “security incidents.”
Ellis was a Visiting Legal Fellow at Heritage Foundation
In May 2021, Ellis joined The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies as visiting fellow for law and technology.
The vice president John G. Malcolm in his statement said in parts, “Having worked for a number of years on intelligence matters in a variety of capacities—as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, as general counsel of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as the deputy national security legal advisor, and as general counsel of the National Security Agency, among others—Michael brings a wealth of experience that will help us understand and address the complex legal issues that arise in the technology space, as well as their policy implications.”
Michael Ellis Rumble
Michael was hired by Rumble, an “alt-tech” online video platform, as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary in December 2021. Rumble actively courts right-wing commentators and conspiracy theorists, and currently partners with Trump’s Truth Social. Prior to being hired, Rumble received investments from Peter Thiel and Senator J.D. Vance.
Michael Ellis Jeopardy
In 2013, at the age of 28, Michael was a contestant on the popular TV quiz show, Jeopardy! and won $16,400.
Michael Ellis Attorney