Christine Abizaid

In 2022, the White House told the press in a briefing that Abizaid was a participant in a June 1, 2022 Situation Room meeting with President Biden in preparation for a drone strike targeting al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The approved operation took place June 31, 2022 and was touted by the Biden administration as having successfully killed Zawahiri.

In May 2022, Abizaid spoke with Michael Morell for the CBS News podcast Intelligence Matters, affirming her sexual orientation and that she recognizes "that it's important and it's important to be seen in the position that I'm in, that people will look at what I'm doing and will take a representation of that and latch on to it - good, bad or indifferent." The following month, she spoke to an audience at a Defense Intelligence Agency Pride Month event, speaking about having once been closeted at the agency. She commented that, "I could have been more brave and placed more trust in people," and that "frankly, it's just easier," being open.

In 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Abizaid to serve as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held open hearings on the nomination on June 9, 2021. The full Senate confirmed her nomination by voice vote on June 24, 2021.

Abizaid disclosed on her 2021 questionnaire to the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that she is married to a woman. She was also accompanied to her Senate confirmation hearing by her wife, whom she acknowledged in her remarks. The New York Times noted that she was the first woman and first openly gay person to be confirmed as head of the Center.

The 2019 Form 990 for the Middle East Policy Council lists Abizaid as a Director. As of December 2022 she remains listed as a Director on the organization's website.

In 2016, Ash Carter put Abizaid in charge of the Defense Innovation Unit in Austin, Texas. Moving to the private sector, she joined Dell in 2017 as director for supply chain sustainability.

Abizaid has worked as a counterterrorism intelligence official in the Defense Intelligence Agency and on the United States National Security Council. During the Obama administration, she served as a senior policy advisor and assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. In 2014, she became the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia.

Christine Sandra Abizaid (born 1979) is an American intelligence officer who is the director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Biden administration.