The turbulent 15 months of Trump’s unlikely US intelligence director

The ex-Democrat without an intelligence background took many actions seemingly meant to flatter Trump Tulsi Gabbard’s tumultuous 15-month tenure as the country’s top intelligence official ended on Friday, when she submitted her resignation as director of national intelligence. Gabbard was an unconventional choice for the role: the former Democrat lacked an intelligence background and her foreign policy views at times diverged from Donald Trump’s, particularly on questions of overseas military intervention. And yet she also took unusual measures to ingratiate herself to the president by vowing to root out politicization across US spy agencies and embracing his agenda of election denial. Over time, Gabbard became increasingly sidelined by the president, who excluded her from key national security conversations on Iran and Venezuela, according to people familiar with the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI). “She had been playing on the outskirts of the inner circle for a while,” said Emily Harding, director of the intelligence, national security and technology (INT) program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). A spokesperson for Ga