When ex-spies go rogue by becoming lawmakers

By Ian Shapira January 2 at 7:00 AM

GLEN ALLEN, Va. — Once Abigail Spanberger embraced the secret life of a CIA operative, she never imagined breaking cover.

She handled and recruited spies in Europe, where she specialized in counterterrorism and nuclear proliferation issues. She aspired to an appointment somewhere as chief of station, the Langley equivalent of ambassador. Instead she wound up leaving the agency in 2014 in search of a less nomadic life after having three children.

Then came the Trump presidency and an overheated climate in which partisanship often triumphed over facts. So Spanberger, a proudly apolitical collector of evidence, decided to do something profoundly radical for an ex-spy. She ran for the House of Representatives — and won, upsetting Rep. Dave Brat (R) in Virginia’s 7th District. On Thursday, when the 116th Congress convenes, she will join a small vanguard of ex-intelligence officers becoming Instagram-friendly lawmakers.

“Leaving the CIA was the biggest loss of my life. I mourned the agency. I miss it every day,” said Spanberger, 39, one of three former CIA officers who will serve in the new Congress.

The idea of CIA officers running for national political office would have struck previous generations of agency spies as sacrilegious, said former CIA director Leon Panetta, who headed the agency after more than 15 years as a California congressman. For one thing, agency officers, more than others in the intelligence community, usually maintain low-profiles, even after they leave Langley. And even if CIA people do take on a modicum of celebrity — television punditry or Hollywood are popular career paths — they typically have avoided Congress, whose oversight of the agency has generated lingering ill will.

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