Critics say Tulsi Gabbard’s ambitions and conspiracy theories she peddled defined and marred her short-lived tenure as the United States’ most powerful intelligence official.
Gabbard’s spokesperson described her 15-month stint as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence as one of “unprecedented transparency, record-breaking declassifications, historic operational reforms, and a relentless focus on putting Americans first.”
But Democrats said Gabbard’s use of conspiracy theories to gain political support doomed her. They said Gabbard will be remembered for her willingness to please Trump — at seemingly any cost —and, most dangerously, her violation of rules put in place to prevent U.S. intelligence agencies from meddling in American politics.
Gabbard’s public declaration that she had found evidence of a “treasonous conspiracy” by former President Barack Obama and her role in the seizure of 2020 election records in Fulton County, Georgia, were cited by Democrats as a return to the abuses of the Cold War, when the CIA spied on Americans.
“Her other legacy is lack of respect for guardrails between intelligence and domestic law enforcement,” a U.S. official with knowledge of the intelligence community told MS NOW.
Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard, bluntly dismissed those criticisms.
“The description you cite is false, and frankly, insulting,” Coleman told MS NOW. “DNI Gabbard began a transformational effort to reshape the Intelligence Community in ways no predecessor had ever attempted.”
Critics said Gabbard, who announced Friday that her last day as DNI will be June 30 because of her husband’s rare bone cancer diagnosis, came into the job vowing to expose vast conspiracies involving the 2020 election; the JFK, MLK and RFK assassinations; Amelia Earhart’s disappearance; UFOs and myriad other topics. But she failed to prove any of them.
“That’s a fair characterization,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW on Friday. “Tulsi is best understood through her ambition.”
Himes said Gabbard, a 45-year-old former Army major from Hawaii who served in Iraq, hoped to rise politically by pleasing Trump and his MAGA base and potentially position herself to run for president in 2028 as a Republican. But Trump’s interventions in Venezuela and war with Iran ran counter to Gabbard’s track record of opposing foreign wars.
“Her underlying motive, though, was to win the love of Trump and perhaps to displace Rubio and Vance as the MAGA dauphin,” Himes said. “Trump’s interventionist tack, in Venezuela and especially Iran, made that totally impossible.”
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Coleman said Gabbard created transparency to cut “bloat” in the workforce, declassified and released more than half a million pages of government records and “exposed the truth about the manufactured Russia Hoax and how Obama administration officials weaponized intelligence to undermine President Trump’s 2016 victory.”
“She challenged institutions that had long operated in the shadows, pushed them to become more accountable and efficient stewards of taxpayer dollars, and began restoring long-lost public trust,” Coleman said. “Because of her leadership, the Intelligence Community is a more effective, efficient, transparent, and accountable to the people it serves — which is something even the critics speaking to MS NOW should support!”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and MS NOW national security contributor, noted that Gabbard also failed to deliver on her promise to reveal more information about “Havana Syndrome,” an alleged series of overseas attacks that left American intelligence officials and diplomats with brain injuries and other health ailments.
Gabbard also failed at the most important job of officials who work for Trump: gaining his trust. She was sidelined from high-level meetings, including those that occur inside the White House Situation Room, officials noted.
Instead, CIA Director John Ratcliffe gained Trump’s trust, particularly after the successful apprehension of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and during the ongoing U.S. war with Iran. Ratcliffe is now a fixture at the White House while Gabbard is rarely seen at events with Trump.
“Any successful intelligence chief must have the ear of the president, and it was clear that she lost that when she was not included in Oval Office or Sit room discussions on Iran,” said Polymeropoulos. “There also is a traditional power struggle between the CIA and ODNI — and she lost that battle too with Ratcliffe.”
Himes expressed sympathy for Gabbard as her husband battles cancer, but said, “Looking forward, I hope that the President and my Senate colleagues will appoint a Director of National Intelligence with a rigorous commitment to analytic integrity and apolitical truth-finding. The men and women of our intelligence community are working every day to uphold democracy and keep Americans safe, and they deserve a leader equally dedicated to that cause — even if it means speaking truth to a president who does not want to hear it.”
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.