Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is slashing her office’s staff by around 40% — the latest major Trump-era change slated for the intelligence agency.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, is planning on cutting its headcount to around 1,300 employees, down from approximately 2,000 in February and 1,500 as of mid-August, according to a senior ODNI official.
The cuts at ODNI are expected to save around $700 million annually, Gabbard’s office estimated in a statement. The total budget for all U.S. intelligence agencies exceeded $100 billion last year.
Gabbard said ODNI “has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power.”
In a fact sheet on the changes — dubbed “ODNI 2.0” — the agency said several departments it argued were redundant would be refocused. Those include the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center, which monitors for weapons of mass destruction; the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which describes its mission as “mitigating threats to democracy”; and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, which handles cybersecurity.
The agency is also planning on shutting down the National Intelligence University, merging it with the Pentagon’s National Defense University. And it will shutter the External Research Council and Strategic Futures Group, which ODNI accused of partisanship.
ODNI was created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which investigators say was preceded by a lack of communication between U.S. intelligence agencies. Its duties include overseeing the dozens of agencies that make up the intelligence community and advising the president on intelligence matters. Since ODNI’s founding around 20 years ago, some members of both parties have supported changes to the agency.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, hailed Gabbard’s restructuring plans. Earlier this year, Cotton introduced a bill that would cap the number of full-time ODNI employees at 650.
“Congress created the ODNI to be a lean organization that used small staffs to coordinate across the Intelligence Community and execute specific, important tasks. Today’s announcement is an important step towards returning ODNI to that original size, scope, and mission,” Cotton said in a statement.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized Gabbard’s moves in a statement. He pointed to “broad, bipartisan agreement that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of thoughtful reform.”
“But given Director Gabbard’s track record of politicizing intelligence – including her decision just yesterday to revoke security clearances from career national security officials – I have no confidence that she is the right person to carry out this weighty responsibility,” said Warner, in reference to Gabbard’s announcement Tuesday revoking the security clearances for dozens of current and former government officials, accusing them of “politicization or weaponization of intelligence.”
Since she was confirmed as ODNI’s leader in February, Gabbard has railed against what she views as politicization of intelligence — drawing pushback from Democratic critics. In some cases, she has reignited years-old political battles over Russian interference in the 2016 election, releasing documents that she argues call into question the government’s findings that Russia attempted to boost President Trump’s campaign.
Last month, she declassified documents dating back to 2016 and accused Obama administration officials of engaging in a “years-long coup” against Mr. Trump — suggesting there could be “criminal implications.”
A spokesperson for former President Barack Obama called the allegations “bizarre” and “ridiculous.” And Democratic lawmakers have condemned the document releases, casting them as a distraction and warning they could put intelligence sources at risk.
Joe Walsh is a senior editor for digital politics at CBS News. Joe previously covered breaking news for Forbes and local news in Boston.
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