Tulsi Gabbard

1 of 4 | Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, speaks during a news conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 23. On Wednesday, she announced 40% cuts to staff at the ODNI. File Photo by Eric Lee/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 20 (UPI) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Wednesday a plan to cut 40% of her office’s staff by October in an effort to save taxpayers about $700 million per year.

She said the overhaul of the Office of the Director National Intelligence will reduce “bloat” and refocus the agency’s mission “in the most agile, effective and efficient way.” Gabbard dubbed the plan ODNI 2.0.

“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.

“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, ODNI 2.0 is the start of a new era focused on serving our country, fulfilling our core national security mission with excellence, always grounded in the U.S. Constitution, and ensuring the safety, security and freedom of the American people.”

Congress created the ODNI to oversee all 18 intelligence community agencies within the U.S. government in 2004 as a response to to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. Since its founding, the staff of the ODNI grew to about 1,850, 500 of whom the Trump administration has already cut since the start of the president’s second term.

In addition to cutting staff, the ODNI won’t rehire vacant positions.

The cuts will see the duties of the Foreign Malign Influence Center, National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center and Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center absorbed into the ODNI’s Mission Integration directorate and the National Intelligence Council. Additionally the work of the National Intelligence University will now fall under the Defense Department’s National Defense University.

The External Research Council will be shuttered and the ODNI’s facilities in Reston, Va., will be closed and moved to headquarters.

Aug. 19 (UPI) — Britain backed down on demand for “backdoor” access to Apple users’ data, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said.

Gabbard wrote in a post on X that the British government agreed to drop the request for access to Apple’s encrypted data after discussions between the new nations.

“Over the past few months, I’ve been working closely with our partners in the U.K., alongside [President Doanld Trump] and [Vice President JD Vance], to ensure Americans’ private data remains private and our Constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected,” Gabbad wrote. “As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties.”

In February, Apple pulled its Advanced Data Protection end-to-end iCloud encryption from British customers’ devices after the government requested access to the data. Following the events of the British government pressuring Apple to build a “backdoor” to allow government authorities to access user iCloud data.

It was not immediately clear whether Apple would restore access to British users following the agreement.

Apple cannot view the data of its customers who have activated its advanced data protection.

“We have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services, and we never will,” the company said.

July 24 (UPI) — U.S. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, are calling for a special counsel to investigate allegations against former President Barack Obama.

The senators said they want the truth about Obama’s alleged “manipulation” before the 2016 election.

“For the good of the country, Senator @JohnCornyn and I urge Attorney General (Pam) Bondi to appoint a special counsel to investigate the extent to which former President Obama, his staff and administration officials manipulated the U.S. national security apparatus for a political outcome,” Graham posted on X.

A special counsel is someone brought from outside to investigate independently.

“As we have supported in the past, appointing an independent special counsel would do the country a tremendous service in this case,” Fox News reported Graham and Cornyn said.

This call comes one day after Director of Homeland Security Tulsi Gabbard released a second formerly classified document alleging wrongdoing by Obama. The Department of Justice created a “strike force” to investigate the evidence.

The document cast doubts on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desire to help Trump beat Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. It backed up the argument that Russia wanted to interfere in the election.

It was part of a House Intelligence Committee report from Sept. 18, 2020, when Republicans controlled the House. Though it doesn’t dispute that Moscow interfered in the election, it shows the Obama administration’s handling of Russian activity.

Last week, Gabbard released a document that accused Obama and his Cabinet of manufacturing an intelligence report to falsely accuse Russia of acting to ensure Trump defeated Clinton during the 2016 election.

Obama’s team responded to last week’s report.

“Nothing in that document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,” Obama spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said in a prepared statement on Tuesday.

“These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.”

“With every piece of information that gets released, it becomes more evident that the entire Russia collusion hoax was created by the Obama administration to subvert the will of the American people,” Graham and Cornyn said.

Trump earlier in the day accused Obama of “trying to lead a coup” with Hillary Clinton.

July 19 (UPI) — The Obama administration should be investigated for abuse of power to smear President Donald Trump in 2016, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said on Friday.

Gabbard announced the release of files and a memo related to claims of Russia’s alleged attempt to disrupt the 2016 elections to help Trump win the presidency over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“There was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of government,” Gabbard said in a news release on Friday.

“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the president from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people,” Gabbard said.

She accused the Obama administration of an “egregious abuse of power and blatant rejection of our Constitution” that “threatens the very foundation and integrity of our democratic republic.”

President Barack Obama and his national security cabinet members “manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork” for falsifying claims that Russia acted to influence the election in Trump’s favor and to impeach the president, according to the DNI release.

Gabbard in 2019 was a member of the Democratic Party and a representative from Hawaii who said, “I could not in good conscience vote either yes or no,” during the Dec. 18, 2019, House vote to impeach Trump, according to Politico.

The DNI release says the U.S. intelligence community consistently concluded Russia likely was not trying to influence the 2016 election, and then-DNI Director James Clapper on Dec. 7, 2016, concluded “foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks” to alter the election results.

Despite evidence to the contrary, Gabbard says Obama and others tasked Clapper with creating a new intelligence community assessment that claimed Russia acted to influence the election.

Obama officials then leaked false statements claiming Russia tried to influence the election’s outcome and produced a new assessment on Jan. 6, 2017, that contradicted prior assessments on the matter, according to the DNI.

Gabbard said she is forwarding relevant materials to the Department of Justice for possible legal action.

Some congressional Democrats have challenged Gabbard’s announcement.

“The unanimous, bipartisan conclusion was that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told CNN on Friday.

“This is just another example of the DNI trying to cook the books, rewrite history and erode trust in the intelligence agencies she’s supposed to be leading,” Warner added.

Warner is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said “every legitimate investigation” into the matter affirmed the findings of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment, CNN reported.

June 26 (UPI) — President Donald Trump and his administration have come out in force to support his claim that last weekend’s bombing completely destroyed Iranian nuclear facilities after a leaked preliminary U.S. intelligence report found the attack only set back the Islamic regime’s nuclear program by months.

During a NATO summit press conference in The Hague on Wednesday, Trump lashed out at news organizations that reported the leaked classified Defense Intelligence Agency initial assessment, leaked Tuesday, saying the reports “maligned” the pilots of the B-2 bombers that bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities Saturday night.

“It was so bad they ended the war,” Trump said. “Somebody said in a certain way, you know, that it was so devastating, actually, if you look at Hiroshima, if you look at Nagasaki, you know, that ended a war, too, this ended a war in a different way, but it was so devastating.”

Trump quoted a statement purportedly from the International Atomic Energy Agency that stated: “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”

The White House also released the quote on its website along with comments from Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Israeli officials and others commenting on the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

UPI has contacted the IAEA for confirmation.

U.S. B-2 bombers attacked three Iranian nuclear facilities on Saturday night, including the underground Fordo site that was said could only be hit by U.S. bunker-buster bombs.

Following the attack, Trump said the sites were “obliterated” — an assessment undercut by a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency assessment reported by CNN and The New York Times, that found core components of Iran’s nuclear program remained intact and that the attack only set back the Islamic regime’s nuclear program by a matter of months.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, during the same press conference, lambasted the news agencies for their reporting while describing the leaked document as having been a low-assessment report, meaning there was low-confidence in the data in the report.

“And why is there low confidence? Because all of the evidence of what was just bombed by 12 30,000 pound bombs is buried under a mountain, devastated and obliterated,” an irate Hegseth said. “So, if you want to make an assessment of what happened at Fordo, you better get a big shovel.”

CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday also released a statement on the attack, saying, “CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted attacks.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard similarly released a statement on X, stating, “New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.

“If the Iranian chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do,” she said.

The United States inserted itself in the Israel-Iran war, which began June 13, when Israel launched a surprise attack on Iranian military and nuclear facilities.

Iran responded by attacking Israel.

Following the U.S. bombing, Iran attacked a U.S. base in Qatar, after which Iran and Israel agreed to a fragile cease-fire, which Trump claims was brought about by his decision to attack Iran.

The IAEA on Tuesday issued a statement saying “we have seen extensive damage at several nuclear sites in Iran.”

“Regarding the additional strikes to Fordow … the IAEA assesses that access roads close to the underground facility and one of its entrances were hit.”

On his Truth Social media platform, Trump on Wednesday said Hegseth is scheduled to hold an 8 a.m. EST press conference at the Pentagon “in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots,” whom he claimed were very upset about the reporting of the leaked assessment.

“The News Conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable,” he said “Enjoy!”

June 18 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump was weighing overnight whether to take the country to war with Iran after an emergency meeting of his national security team in the White House.

The 80-minute Situation Room meeting of Trump’s key Cabinet officials Tuesday evening concluded without a clear consensus, CBS News reported, but one option on the table was sending U.S. bombers to destroy underground nuclear sites that are impenetrable to Israeli warplanes.

The network said senior intelligence and Defense Department officials had told it that Iran’s heavily fortified Fordow uranium enrichment plant, 300 feet under a mountain near Qom and 85 miles south of Tehran, was one possible target.

Fordow was believed to be the facility most likely to reach a critical threshold where Iran’s nuclear development program — which it has always insisted is for civilian purposes only — crosses into a program capable of producing a nuclear warhead.

However, there was disagreement at the meeting attended by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and CIA Director John Ratcliffe over exactly what the United States’ next step should be.

Israeli airstrikes on the facility with bunker-busting bombs have thus far failed to penetrate the facility, with the International Atomic Energy Agency saying it had sustained no damage as of Monday.

“No damage has been seen at the site of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant or at the Khondab heavy water reactor, which is under construction. Bushehr nuclear power plant has not been targeted nor affected by the recent attacks, and neither has the Tehran Research Reactor,” IAEA Secretary General Rafael Grossi told the agency’s board.

However, he said Israeli strikes had caused considerable damage to above-ground facilities at Esfahan and Natanz, with one of the plants having produced U-235 uranium enriched up to 60%.

Naturally occurring U-235 uranium contains only a tiny proportion of chain-reacting U-235 isotope and must be “enriched” 3% to 5% for nuclear power purposes. To become weapons-grade, U-235 needs to be enriched to above 90%, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, although the super-enriched uranium is also used to produce isotopes used for nuclear medicine scans and radiotherapy.

The United States has powerful weapons that could, with repeated hits, penetrate a facility such as Fordow.

The BBC reported that would require deployment of America’s so-called Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound bomb delivered by the U.S. Air Force’s B-2 stealth bomber, which can carry two of the monster munitions.

As the conflict entered its sixth day, Israel said it launched airstrikes involving 50 fighter jets overnight against a uranium centrifuge production site and multiple weapons facilities critical to Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

In a post on X, the Israel Defense Forces said the centrifuges made at the plant were for enriching uranium beyond civilian levels. Other sites hit included a facility making parts for surface-to-surface missiles used against Israel and another plant making surface-to-air missile components used to target aircraft.

The IDF said the strikes “directly degraded” Iran’s ability to threaten Israel and the wider region.

“We have delivered significant blows to the Iranian regime, and as such, they have been pushed back into central Iran. They are now focusing their efforts on conducting missile fire from the area of Isfahan. We are aiming at military targets; they are attacking civilian homes,” IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said.

Air raid sirens sounded across large swathes of central and northern Israel just before midnight local time after Iran launched a salvo of missiles at the country, including so-called “Fattah-1” hypersonic missiles.

Warnings sounded again across a smaller area in the north-east about 4.30 a.m. due to what the IDF called “hostile aircraft infiltration.”

Trump and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei embarked on a war of words Tuesday with the Trump saying Khamenei would be an “easy target” if the United States and Israel chose to take him out. Trump also called for Tehran’s “unconditional surrender.”

“The battle begins,” Khamenei threatened in a social media post invoking Shia Islam’s Haider, the first Shia Imam and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, accompanied by an image of fire raining down on a city.

We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.”

May 16 (UPI) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday night that DHS and the Secret Service are investigating a since-deleted picture former FBI Director James Comey published online as a threat targeting President Donald Trump.

“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” she said online. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”

Comey had published the now-deleted photo to Instagram. It showed shells on a beach arranged to form the numerals “86 47.”

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey had written in the caption.

The number 86 is widely used code in restaurants and the hospitality industry meaning an item is either sold out, no longer available or should be removed from a dish. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says it is slag meaning to eject, dismiss or remove.

The number 47 suggests Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States.

The president’s eldest child, Donald Trump Jr., published a screenshot of the deleted post to his X account, describing the image as “James Comey casually calling for my dad to be murdered.”

In a follow-up post on Instagram, Comey explained that he had assumed the shells conveyed a political statement but not one suggesting violence.

“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he said. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the FBI is aware of the post “directed at President Trump” and is in contact with the Secret Service.

“Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support,” he said.

UPI has contacted the Secret Service for comment.

Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, also described the image on X as Comey issuing “a call to action to murder the President of the United States.”

In an interview with Fox News, Gabbard said Comey should be jailed for it.

“I’m very concerned for the president’s life,” she said. “And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”

Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 until he was fired by Trump during his first term in 2017, during which his office investigated Russian interference into the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.