U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has announced plans to cut the agency’s staff by 50%. Gabbard said that the agency had become “bloated and inefficient” over the last two decades. She also said that its annual budget will be reduced by $700 million, and that the “serious changes” would consolidate teams across the agency and ensure it was fulfilling its mission to “provide objective, unbiased, timely intelligence.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) had around 1,800 employees when Gabbard stepped into the role. She has already reduced staff by about 25%, according to the Federal News Network. It is unclear whether the 50% reduction was a percentage of the original staff size or the already-reduced total.
This announcement came hours after Gabbard said the Trump administration would revoke the security clearances for 37 current and former U.S. officials. The persons impacted by this include those who concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, which Trump won.
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The people involved in assessing Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election as well as members of former President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, according to CNN. “Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right. Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold,” Gabbard said about this move.
This isn’t the first time security clearances have been revoked under the Trump administration. The administration had also done the same for Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and former lawmakers involved in investigations of the U.S. Capitol riot four years ago.
Gabbard also introduced other changes, including the elimination of the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which monitors foreign efforts to influence the U.S. public. A fact sheet said that function was already performed by other U.S. intelligence units.
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The fact sheet also said Gabbard was eliminating units that track weapons of mass destruction and cyber threats, arguing that those functions are already handled by other intelligence agencies. A group that produced long-ranged forecasts of global trends will also be going.
Gabbard has been in the forefront of the charge against Obama-era intelligence officials. Trump and Gabbard have claimed the intelligence community’s assessment as a “treasonous conspiracy” to undermine the president’s electoral success. Democrats, including a spokesperson for Obama have claimed these allegations were a “distraction,” as they accused the White House of deflecting attention from unpopular policies and Trump’s alleged ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.