Former New Mexico congresswoman Heather Wilson looks to be in the running for a key national security position in the Donald Trump administration.
Serafin Gomez of Fox News first reported on Twitter that Wilson, now president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, is being considered for the position of director of National Intelligence.
A spokeswoman for the school confirmed to NM Political Report Trump’s transition team has been in contact with Wilson.
“President Wilson was contacted by the President-elect’s transition team late Friday afternoon,” Communications Manager Fran LeFort wrote in a statement. “They asked her to come to New York on Monday to talk to them about a senior national security position. She will have no further comment at this time.”
The Director of National Intelligence is the top intelligence advisor the president and oversees the country’s Intelligence Committee. This position was created after the 9/11 terror attacks.
Wilson, a Republican, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1998 to 2009 as the representative of the state’s First Congressional District, which includes Albuquerque. She won increasingly narrow reelections—including by just 861 votes against Democrat Patricia Madrid in 2006—until she ran for U.S. Senate in 2008. She lost in the 2008 U.S. Senate primary to Steve Pearce.
She again ran for Senate unsuccessfully in 2012, losing to Democrat Martin Heinrich in the general election.
Wilson is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and a Rhodes Scholar. She served in the Air Force until 1989. She then became the director for European Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council Staff under President George H.W. Bush. While in Congress, she served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and chaired the Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence.
Wilson also chaired the transition team for Susana Martinez after Martinez won the gubernatorial election in 2010.
In 2013, the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology named Wilson president. She was the first female president of the school.
Another name reported as a possible Director of National Intelligence is Carly Fiorina. The New York Times first reported that the former Hewlett-Packard CEO’s meeting with Trump was about the position.
When she left the meeting and spoke to press, Fiorina praised Trump, according to the paper.
Fiorina previously ran for the Republican nomination for president.
