Few Cabinet appointments by President Donald Trump in his second term were greeted more warmly by the MAGA faithful than the unconventional selection of Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence. The Senate’s confirmation of the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii on Feb. 12 has opened the door to serious reform of the intelligence community. That’s long overdue.
But what has Gabbard been up to in her first few days in office?
That’s difficult to say, given the secrecy that surrounds the nation’s spy boss.
Gabbard’s contentious Jan. 30 testimony before the Senate’s intelligence oversight committee offered sparse hints regarding Gabbard’s agenda as DNI. Instead, questioning focused on controversial past issues, including Gabbard’s puzzling unwillingness to label Edward Snowden a traitor despite his 2013 defection to Moscow after stealing more than a million classified documents from the National Security Agency. Gabbard’s reticence to call out Snowden vexed even some GOP senators.
Nevertheless, Gabbard made the cut, becoming only the eighth person (and second woman) to occupy the DNI position, which was established in 2005 as part of congressionally mandated intelligence reforms after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Gabbard comes to the job with less experience in the intelligence business than any of her DNI predecessors. In fact, she has none.
We know that the Trump administration wants to punish the Deep State for its partisan excesses which hurt Republicans and boosted Democrats during Trump’s first term. What exactly that looks like, however, we simply don’t know. This column has suggested areas of the intelligence community that urgently need root-and-branch, particularly our broken national counterintelligence system.
At the Munich Security Conference, just two days after her Senate confirmation, Gabbard made a statement praising Trump’s promise to be “a peacemaker and unifier,” adding that “More than ever, we need strong intelligence and security partnerships as we work to ensure the freedom and security of our nations and their peoples, and work toward peace.”
Gabbard’s X (formerly Twitter) account as the DNI doesn’t reveal much about her performance as America’s top spy. There’s praise for the commander in chief, there are platitudes about how Gabbard is “looking forward to working with [the intelligence community] to ensure the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.” Gabbard also amplified a Breitbart report that, in line with the Department of Government Efficiency, she has already identified more than $20 million in budget cuts at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in line with the president’s order to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion and by curtailing staff travel to nonessential conferences.
Gabbard’s brief statement to the intelligence community upon her Senate confirmation wasn’t exactly brimming with enthusiasm. “I know firsthand how critical accurate, unbiased, and timely intelligence is for the President, Congress, and our military to ensure the safety, security, and freedom of the American people. Unfortunately, trust in the intelligence community is at an all-time low.” She continued, “President Trump’s reelection is a clear mandate from the American people to end the weaponization and politicization of the IC.”
What exactly does Gabbard intend to do to cease the “weaponization and politicization” of America’s spy agencies? Nobody inside the Beltway seems to know, not even the people whose job is ferreting out secrets.
What’s surprised many across the intelligence community is the lack of any substantive communication with the workforce from Gabbard. She’s been in the DNI job for 10 days now, and at the end of her second week as the nation’s spy boss, intelligence community employees have yet to receive any message from the “head office” regarding Gabbard’s plans.
This is unprecedented. All seven of her predecessors, serving Democrat and Republican administrations, quickly released some sort of message to the intelligence community workforce elaborating their vision, goals, and aims as the DNI. This may seem perfunctory but the absence of any all-intelligence community message or email from Gabbard after 10 days is unnerving even her fans and backers across the 17 agencies and bureaus that make up America’s intelligence community.
Concerns are mounting because the intelligence community is expecting a substantial round of firings, what bureaucrats call a reduction in force, in line with DOGE-driven cuts across the federal government. America’s spy agencies haven’t experienced any substantial RIF since the 1970s, when the CIA fired hundreds of officers in the so-called Halloween Massacre of 1977.
Mass firings unnerve counterintelligence officers since the middle-aged spy who gets laid off suddenly, with a mortgage to pay and kids in college, can easily become a security risk. What easier way to generate quick cash, while sticking it to the team that fired you, than to walk into the Chinese or Russian embassies offering to sell secrets? That’s foolish in the long term, risking an extended prison sentence, but desperation and anger can drive bad decisions.
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If Gabbard intends to oversee a round of major layoffs, the counterspies need time to prepare. Moreover, leaving the intelligence community workforce in limbo about what Trump’s second term will mean for them is creating worries, perhaps needlessly. Worse, Gabbard’s silence is encouraging doubters across the intelligence community who spout “that Hillary Clinton nonsense,” meaning the Democratic allegation that the new DNI is supposedly too close to Moscow, as a Gabbard supporter and senior intelligence official told me.
Gabbard is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. She knows what “commander’s intent” is, as the U.S. military terms it, when the boss tells the troops their mission. That’s what the intelligence community needs to hear from the new DNI, without delay. The sooner Gabbard tells her employees her plans for them, and her agenda for the nation’s intelligence agencies, the sooner they can get down to implementing overdue reforms.
John R. Schindler served with the National Security Agency as a senior intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer.