“I turned it down, partially because I didn’t want to work for him, partially because I didn’t think the structure was set up right,” former CIA director James Woolsey said. | Getty Ex-CIA chief Woolsey: Flynn offered me job as CIA director

Former CIA Director James Woolsey was offered his old job back in the administration of President Donald Trump, Woolsey told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Thursday, but he turned down the job over concerns with Michael Flynn, then the incoming national security adviser.

It was Flynn who offered Woolsey the job six days after Trump’s surprise victory in last November’s presidential election, according to the former CIA director who led the agency under President Bill Clinton. The offer, Woolsey said, was to lead the CIA and report directly to Flynn, a stipulation that prompted Woolsey to turn down the job.


Woolsey also told the Journal that he did not believe Flynn had the authority to offer him the CIA job.

“I turned it down, partially because I didn’t want to work for him, partially because I didn’t think the structure was set up right,” he said.

Robert Kelner, Flynn's lawyer, disputed Woolsey's account in a statement to POLITICO, suggesting that the former CIA director's statements to the Journal could be sour grapes after he was passed over for jobs in the Trump administration.

"Mr. Woolsey’s claim in The Wall Street Journal that he was offered the position of the CIA director if he would agree to report only to Gen. Flynn is entirely false," Kelner said. "Woolsey was passed over for any position in the Trump administration and that may be coloring this and other untrue allegations he has made against Gen. Flynn."

Woolsey said he would have considered the job if Trump had wanted him and if the job reported directly to the president and not to Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser just weeks after inauguration.