Derek J. Harvey is a retired US Army Colonel who previously served on the staff of Congressman Devin Nunes, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

[1][2][3] Harvey is a former National Security Council (NSC) staffer in President Donald Trump's administration and was the first director of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Center of Excellence at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), having been selected by General David Petraeus in 2009 to lead the new organization.

Prior to joining DIA as a civilian in early 2006, then Colonel Harvey was the Senior Analyst for Iraq, Joint Staff Directorate for Intelligence, from November 2004 to December 2005.

[7][8][9] Associate Editor of Washington Post Bob Woodward wrote in his 2010 book titled Obama's Wars (Simon & Schuster, NY): Derek Harvey was "one of [the U.S. Lt. General and then Commander of CENTCOM, David] Petraeus' most trusted intelligence advisors in Iraq", who in January 2009 was at CENTCOM HQ in Tampa, FL, as part of a team of 80 intelligence specialists "drilling down on the Afghanistan component of [President Obama's National Security Council directed Strategic] review".

McMaster, a long time associate of Harvey's, dismissed him from his position on the National Security Council on July 27, 2017 after a series of reported disagreements.

[11] In September 2017, following his dismissal from the National Security Council, Harvey became a top aide to Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections until March 12, 2018.

[3][12] On January 17, 2020, text messages released by the House indicated that Harvey coordinated with Ukrainian-American Lev Parnas to obtain negative information against Trump's political opponent Joe Biden and to bolster the discredited claims that it was the Ukraine and not Russia that interfered in the 2016 election.

[18] In April 2021, Bennett found Harvey and his attorney had acted in bad faith and ordered them to pay CNN’s court costs and legal fees.