Motivated after 9/11…
Raised in Poughkeepsie, NY, by a Republican mother and Democratic father, Castelli played baseball in high school, then went to Siena College, a private Franciscan institution near Albany. He was inspired to earn a master’s degree in national security studies at Georgetown University after September 11, then joined the CIA, where, he said, he “helmed” the operations department and agency analysis as a targeting specialist and then a leader. of different teams.
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After five months on Barack Obama’s National Security Council, he spent a year as director of counterterrorism on Donald Trump’s tumultuous National Security Council, serving under Lieutenant General Gen. Michael Flynn, then General HR McMaster. Castelli then returned to the CIA for about two years in a liaison role while attending business school at Northwestern University, before leaving for the private sector.
During his two administrations, Castelli also sat in the front row in front of the rise of groups like the Islamic State, giving him a first-hand appreciation of the defeat the United States faces in the world. Muslim world after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After seven CIA officers were killed by a suicide bomber in 2009 at a US base in Khost, Afghanistan, Castelli took on a more “operational role,” he said, declining to go into detail. details.
…And again after January 6
But the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Castelli said, prompted him to leave his job at a healthcare company to run for public office.
Last year, he first moved in and now lives in Glens Falls, a former lumber and lumber mill town near Lake George, and announced his run against Stefanik in September. prompted accusations from Stefanik’s local political apparatus that Castelli is a carpet salesman – a transplant from Washington, DC, or worse, Poughkeepsie.
In Castelli’s narrative, however, his decision to run against Stefanik was inspired by her defense of Trump and his embrace of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election – even after the attack on the Capitol – offended his patriotism.
