Tulsi Gabbard's 15-month run as the nation's top intelligence official came to an abrupt end Friday with her resignation. Her tenure was marked by an unusual arc: an unconventional appointment that turned combative, followed by steady marginalization as her star dimmed in the Trump administration.
Gabbard, a former Democrat with no intelligence background, arrived at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as an unlikely choice. Her foreign policy positions had often clashed with Trump's worldview, particularly on military interventions abroad. Yet she worked aggressively to win his favor, embracing his election denial narratives and vowing to root out what she called politicization in U.S. spy agencies.
Over time, the calculation backfired. Trump began excluding her from critical national security decisions regarding Iran and Venezuela, according to people with knowledge of the intelligence office. By spring, the president was privately canvassing cabinet members about firing her. Gabbard had become, as one analyst put it, someone playing "on the outskirts of the inner circle for a while."
Gabbard's confirmation pitch centered on downsizing the intelligence establishment. Senator Tom Cotton told her that success would mean returning the ODNI to "its original size, scope, and mission." She claimed to have cut staff by 30% and guided roughly 100 employees into early retirement programs. She also created a task force, the Director's Initiatives Group, to investigate what Trump wanted examined: Covid-19 origins, 2016 Russian interference, and anomalous health incidents. The group was dismantled in December after interagency friction and given a final shutdown date in June.
Her management style raised alarms among longtime intelligence professionals. She surrounded herself with a tight inner circle of loyalists, particularly Alexa Henning, her acting chief of staff who came from Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' office. Henning adopted an combative posture toward the media and lawmakers, repeatedly attacking Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner on social media and defending Gabbard against questions about her ties to a Hawaii-based religious group and her past sympathies toward authoritarian figures.
"She's treating a serious, policy-based job like she's working on a campaign," a seasoned congressional aide said. "It's unprecedented. This is historically not a partisan job."
The breaking point came in June when Trump publicly dismissed Gabbard's intelligence assessment on Iran. During a joint U.S.-Israel mission targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, reporters asked Trump about his intelligence chief's previous testimony that Iran wasn't building nuclear weapons. "I don't care what she said," Trump shot back on Air Force One, adding that Iran was "very close to having one." Days later, Gabbard reversed position, suddenly claiming Iran could produce a weapon "within weeks."
That capitulation foreshadowed worse to come. In February, Gabbard appeared at an FBI raid on an election office in Georgia, a move Democrats said was deeply inappropriate for the nation's top intelligence official. Trump initially praised the move, but the episode symbolized something uncomfortable: Gabbard inserting herself into domestic election matters to curry favor with the president.
When her deputy, Joe Kent, resigned in protest over Trump's decision to launch military action against Iran, Gabbard failed to publicly condemn him. The omission stung Trump. Intelligence community sources say CIA Director John Ratcliffe quietly became Trump's preferred national security voice, eclipsing Gabbard in influence and trust.
Gabbard attributed her resignation to her husband's recent bone cancer diagnosis. She will remain as a caretaker until June 30, when Aaron Lukas assumes the role as acting director. Trump offered only perfunctory remarks, saying she had "done an incredible job, and we will miss her." The tone suggested relief more than regret.
Author James Rodriguez: "Gabbard's fall is a reminder that loyalty and genuine expertise aren't interchangeable in the intelligence world, and that trying to be all things to a demanding president can leave you standing nowhere at all."
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