As most of the country is now aware, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, is resigning effective June 30th. Unfortunately, her husband is suffering from a rare bone cancer and she is going to help him as best she can. It is rather remarkable how many cases of extremely rare cancers have surfaced during the years following the COVID vaccines.
Prayers for Tulsi and her family as they navigate the days and months ahead.
Tulsi Gabbard may be the first DNI the country has ever had who was true to the defined parameters of the position. President Trump praised her and wished the couple well. “Unfortunately, after having done a great job, Tulsi Gabbard will be leaving the Administration on June 30th,” the President began. “Tulsi has done an incredible job, and we will miss her.”
Just what was that job?
The ODNI was created as an outcome of the 9-11 Commission recommendations. In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose. The DNI was intended to provide information to domestic agencies about foreign terror networks that would prevent something like 9-11 from happening again. However, prior to Gabbard, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has never, not for one day, operated on this intent.
Let’s be reminded that all Intelligence Community (IC) silos fall under the ODNI. However, the envisioned function of the DNI as the fulcrum point never took place until Tulsi Gabbard became DNI. That fulcrum point was the hub for all foreign and domestic intelligence activities.
Tulsi Gabbard embraced the challenge of being the “first” DNI. Tulsi reached into the HPSCI for the Atkinson transcript (think Trump Impeachment 1.0). Why? Because the Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG) works for the DNI. In collaboration with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Tulsi also took control of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) and also took the Intelligence Advisory Board out of the CIA and put it under the ODNI.
These were structural changes that were designed to make the IC more accountable to its civilian leadership.
Gabbard helped to expose the coup attempt. She pulled the background material behind the CIA’s 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) (a bunch of hooey designed to weaken Trump as President) out of the CIA. Gabbard declassified it and gave it to the public. She also released the HPSCI report on the ICA highlighting the politicization of it. Additionally, she released all the background material showing how John Brennan, James Comey and James Clapper coordinated with the Obama White House on the Trump targeting effort.
Where Gabbard really excelled was getting the foreign side of the IC to work within the lines so to speak. Sundance has a good analogy to help understand this.
Sundance:
♦ Historically: The Secretary of State is the maître d’. DoS/CIA personnel are the wait staff. The CIA Director is the chef in the kitchen. USAID were the food runners, and the Dept of War were the bus boys. Every nation gets a different menu…. and, the important part, Israel has a table in the kitchen.
Congress eats for free, and for the past several years the ever-arbitrary client Ukraine was the biggest tipper who obnoxiously reminded the staff.
Think carefully about what is being said above. Think about how this all comes together into the massive fraud that was going on in USAID.
Notice. No where in this analogy do you see the DNI.
There’s a reason for that.
Until Tulsi Gabbard entered the IC system, no DNI ever engaged in this process. [REMINDER HERE] Tulsi Gabbard did. Strongly. As a consequence, everyone within that historic operation viewed Mrs. Gabbard as a threat.
Gabbard walked into the restaurant, selected her own seat, started to look at the menu options, and began closely watching how the employees were interacting and asking what their functional value to the American people who are paying the bills.
Gabbard didn’t do this arbitrarily. Again, look at the operation described. In 2025, Marco Rubio is the maître d’, and John Ratcliffe is the chef. It was all of the people who “profit by the preservation of the old institution” who immediately became the people who freaked out.
There was a reason that the Senate made it as difficult as possible to Gabbard to be recommended for confirmation. Gabbard was perceived to be a threat to the system in place.
♦ Sticking with the metaphor, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) is like the public Health Dept. They are supposed to do the food safety and quality inspections.
Unfortunately, the SSCI inspectors are easily bribed and as a consequence there is no oversight per se. The Restaurant donates to the health inspectors, provides them influence and affluence, and like a mafia operation the inspectors fear the restaurant owners they are supposed to oversee. [Schumer: “Seven ways from Sunday”]
For decades the multinational restaurant business operated without interruption. Each maître d’ simply smiled and casually palmed the indulgency bribes from the arriving guests. The status of the restaurant expanded with everyone making bank.
Tulsi just walking in and sitting down was like Eliot Ness casually walking into Al Capone’s favorite speakeasy. The IC equivalent of a WTF moment.
Now, here it becomes important to think about the technical processes that were used with the ODNI was created, and how Tulsi essentially is the very first DNI that wasn’t appointed purposefully just to retain the Patriot Act status quo.
From that perspective, America’s first fully matriculated DNI is Tulsi Gabbard. The rest were placeholders for the status quo; inserted to retain the power of the CIA and the systems of their familiarity.
During the Bush, Obama, Trump (T1) and Biden terms, the IC interface never changed. The basic way the IC system operated was the same. The Dept of State did their thing; the CIA was inside and part of the support system; the FBI/DOJ did their corrupt Lawfare stuff domestically and the DNI was irrelevant.
Go back and look at it. It was only after Tulsi Gabbard became DNI that the office truly opened up, and the long-neglected, albeit new systems meant to run the control mechanisms were finally dusted off and put to use.
Tulsi was a lioness who was exposing all the cockroaches. Gabbard was creating mayhem in the swamp. This was reflected in all the smear attempts against her as time moved forward.
Critics within the entrenched IC network framed her moves as disruptive. There is no doubt this was true. This had to be the case. Gabbard’s attempts represented the first genuine effort to align the IC with its stated mission of serving elected leadership and the American people.
The intelligence apparatus exists to protect liberty, not to target citizens who challenge prevailing narratives. When it drifts from that purpose, we all suffer. Gabbard’s tenure reminds us that structural reforms mean little without leaders prepared to enforce them.
There is another aspect of this that deserves some serious consideration. Let’s consider how this change affects the ongoing situation. To help with this review, it is useful to look at the DOJ changeover.
Pam Bondi was never my favorite cabinet officer. I thought she spent too much time talking on television and was not getting done what the people were looking for. And that was indictments against all the criminals who had operated with impunity in DC.
However, what she did do was clean out a lot of people who were not aligned with the administration’s mission. Some of these people resigned “out of principle.” Of course, that principle was not upsetting the applecart of DC politics.
Once Bondi left, Trump appointed assistant AG Todd Blanche (Trump’s former personal lawyer who could have never been confirmed) as acting AG. And the dam broke and indictments and arrests have been flowing non-stop. Is there anyone on the planet who thinks that Todd Blanche just got lucky to be appointed as acting AG? Tramp had contingency plans operating in the more important offices.
Let’s look at the DNI situation. Tulsi Gabbard’s principal deputy was one Aaron Lukas. PDJT has appointed him as acting DNI.
Jeff Childers notes:
Lukas has been serving as principal deputy DNI since 2025. Unlike Tulsi, who lacked any prior intelligence background, he is a career intel hand, an ex‑CIA chief of station, and the ODNI’s chief of staff during Trump’s first term. It is nearly certain that Lukas was the muscular arm and architect behind Tulsi’s reforms.
In other words, since Tulsi came to ODNI, lacking experience but having broad objectives, to cut headcount, depoliticize, de-DEI, declassify, kill the censorship complex, the natural division of labor would have been: Tulsi set the direction, and Lukas designed and enforced the plans.
So, Gabbard was the wreaking ball who asserted the legitimate power of the DNI office in changing the direction of the office to one that aligns with its defined mission. Lukas is the insider who knows how the system works, where the bodies are buried, etc. I think the Office of the DNI is in good hands for the time being.
There is a lot to admire and emulate in Tulsi’s service to Our Great Nation. She is honest, brave and savvy. She is the consummate Citizen-Soldier and Public Servant. Prayers and Godspeed to her and Abraham as they embark on their next chapter together.