NASA's Administrator reports directly to the White House: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/ic/faqs.html https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/ic/faqs

NASA's Administrator reports directly to the White House: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/ic/faqs.html https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/ic/faqs.html The CIA reports to the DNI which is also selected by the Whitehouse and confirmed by the Senate. For independent, they sure have an awful lot of Executive and Legislative branch interaction for their top leadership. Civilians or military, they're all Federal employees. Your analogies are simply wrong.