Republican senator proposes to cut 60% of Office of the Director of National Intelligence staff
After the conflict between Israel and Iran broke out, media reports came out that the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has always opposed the United States to use force against Iran, was deliberately ignored by President Trump. NBC exclusively reported on the 27th that Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Republican Senator from Arkansas, proposed to reform the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and specific measures include laying off 60% of the staff.
After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was established under the authorization of Congress to coordinate 18 intelligence agencies. Its work focuses on counter-terrorism and counter-espionage activities, but its staff size has gradually expanded over the past 20 years and it has an internal intelligence analysis team.
Sources said that according to Cotton’s proposal, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which currently has 1,600 employees, will be reduced to a maximum of 650 employees.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence had 2,000 employees in January this year. After President Trump took office, Gabbard has laid off about 20% of the staff.
A Senate aide who spoke anonymously said Cotton and other Republican senators had been discussing cutting the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for months, and the discussion began long before Gabbard was appointed by Trump.
Cotton declined to comment on the report. An official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Gabbard and her staff had been discussing with congressional aides over the past few months how to implement large-scale reforms so that the ODNI can focus on the core mission of national security.
On the 26th, senior Trump administration officials gave a confidential briefing to bipartisan senators on the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine all attended the meeting, but Gabbard did not attend.
Cotton has criticized the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for being too large and like flooding the office, and should return to the coordination role of the agency when it was first established, rather than issuing analytical reports or doing work that duplicates that of other intelligence agencies.
The report pointed out that the “Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act” proposed by Cotton will transfer the Counterterrorism Center under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Center for Nuclear Proliferation and Biosecurity will be incorporated into the Central Intelligence Agency. The National Intelligence Council under the ODNI will no longer write intelligence analysis, but will only be responsible for coordinating intelligence reports from other intelligence agencies.
