Tulsi Gabbard announced in Washington on Friday that she will step down as Donald Trump's director of national intelligence at the end of June, saying she is leaving the top US intelligence post to care for her husband following his diagnosis with a rare form of bone cancer, even as reports suggested that Trump and the White House had already decided to force her out.
Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii and Iraq war veteran, was an unconventional choice when Trump picked her to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The role was created after the 11 September 2001 attacks to coordinate 18 separate US intelligence agencies, and it has traditionally been held by career intelligence figures or senior national security hands. Gabbard arrived with battlefield credentials and a fast‑evolving political profile, shifting from Democrat to Republican and endorsing Trump's 2024 bid, but with little direct background in the spy world.
