A Republican senator is proposing a plan to slash the workforce of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, while signs of friction have emerged between President Trump and his intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard.
The legislation proposed by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas could diminish Gabbard’s role within the intelligence bureaucracy, according to NBC News. The ODNI reduction plan comes after Gabbard is reported to have angered Trump during his attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in Iran.
Cotton’s bill, the Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act, proposes to slash ODNI’s workforce by 60 percent, from roughly 1,600 to a cap of 650 employees. ODNI, set up in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, oversees all 18 intelligence services in the United States.
The bill would also eliminate the Foreign Malign Influence Center—the hub tracking Russian and other foreign interference in the U.S. It would also shift a counterterrorism center to the FBI and hand a biosecurity and proliferation center to the CIA, according to NBC News. Under the legislation, ODNI would also be stripped of its specialized “centers” altogether, including a climate security advisory council.
The Daily Beast has contacted ODNI and Sen. Cotton’s office for comment. A Senate staffer told NBC News that the efforts from Cotton and other GOP senators on the bill began before Gabbard’s appointment, while an ODNI official told the outlet that Gabbard has been speaking with congressional staff for months about making cuts and reforms at the agency.
The proposed overhaul follows mounting tension—which has even erupted in public—between Gabbard and the White House.
Trump publicly rebuked Gabbard last week, saying she was “wrong” after she testified before Congress that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon. “I don’t care what [Gabbard] said,” Trump said aboard Air Force One. “I think they were very close to having one.”
Gabbard’s absence from a major Senate intelligence briefing on the Iran bombings on Thursday, first reported by The Washington Post, further fueled speculation that she is being sidelined. The briefing was attended by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine.
A senior White House official downplayed Gabbard’s exclusion.
“CIA Director Ratcliffe will represent the intelligence community tomorrow while Tulsi Gabbard continues her critical work at DNI,” the official told the Daily Beast. “The media is turning this into something it’s not.”
Michael Wolff, a Trump biographer, separately told the Daily Beast Podcast this week that Gabbard is on thin ice with the White House after an intelligence leak undercut Trump’s claims about the success of his bombing operation. Trump had claimed the strikes amounted to a “total obliteration.”
“It’s always important in the Trump script, the fallback is always who to blame, who to blame,” Wolff said. “Just have to have someone to blame. Tulsi is in the line of fire.”
Gabbard’s allies admitted to NBC News there is some friction with the White House, but claimed it has been overstated.
The post MAGA Senators Plot to Slash Staff Under Cabinet Official Who Upset Trump appeared first on The Daily Beast.
