WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced plans Wednesday to cut her agency’s workforce by up to 40% in the coming weeks — and eliminate several offices that “politicized” the flow of critical information.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence had been staffed by more than 1,800 employees when Gabbard was sworn in but is expected to retain just 1,300, while at least three offices deemed redundant will be shut down, according to senior officials.
The “core functions” of those offices — Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center — will be taken up either by ODNI’s Mission Integration office or the National Intelligence Council.
The latter comprises the most senior intelligence analysts, who help oversee more than a dozen agencies.
ODNI officials claimed in a briefing with reporters that the FMIC had eroded Americans’ civil liberties, particularly during the Biden administration — and even contributed to moves by big tech platforms to censor speech like The Post’s bombshell story on former first son Hunter Biden in October 2020.
One official compared the office to the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which Secretary Marco Rubio closed down in April following similar accusations of suppressing free speech.
The other two offices focused on monitoring threats involving weapons of mass destruction and cyberattacks — both of which are handled by other existing executive branch agencies.
Additionally, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has agreed to absorb the National Intelligence University into his department’s National Defense University for all intelligence-related programs and courses.
The initiative, branded “ODNI 2.0,” could save US taxpayers up to $700 million, the officials projected.
Gabbard announced the changes in a message to the workforce Wednesday afternoon, which said ODNI was “at a crossroads.”
“Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence,” she said in a statement.
“ODNI and the IC must make serious changes to fulfill its responsibility to the American people and the US Constitution by focusing on our core mission: find the truth and provide objective, unbiased, timely intelligence to the President and policymakers,” she added.
“Ending the weaponization of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people’s trust which has long been eroded.”
