Or maybe it was Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, who last month pulled security clearances for 37 people. This dramatic move has upset established protocol and created division among the intelligence community and the Trump administration alike. Our list included the leading contenders for important deputy positions to CIA Director John Ratcliffe. It featured two staffers to then-Democratic congressional leadership, Maher Bitar and Thomas West. Gabbard’s key misstep was not notifying the White House in advance. In response, President Trump’s advisors are overplaying their hand and playing with fire.
Gabbard claimed that her move to remove these clearances was in direct accordance with orders straight from the desk of President Trump. She claimed that the individuals targeted were involved in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance partisan agendas or had leaked classified information. In her defense of the decision, Gabbard declared, “Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right.”
That story played out over the episode’s dramatic backdrop of growing conflict between Gabbard and other wings of the Trump administration. President’s advisers expressed shock dismay that Gabbard’s deputy chief of staff, Alexa Henning. However, she failed to adequately clarify how the list of people was generated or what the evidentiary basis for the revocations were. That lack of transparency led to increased frustration. Just as concerning, apparently the White House wasn’t even allowed to review the list before it was released to the public.
Weeks after the revocation, many of Trump’s chief advisers were apparently still stewing over Gabbard. They believe her actions are a mistake that have chipped away at already cold relations between her and the CIA. A senior intelligence official confirmed that Gabbard had pitched her plan to Trump back in the Oval Office. Her goal was to collect the names of these officers to fire in the intelligence community working to produce assessments about Russia’s election interference in the 2016 election.
Trump’s advisers first started the revocation as part of an effort to address what they viewed as shortcomings in intelligence community threat assessments. They wanted to punish people they thought lied or oversold about intelligence on Russian activity during the last presidential election. The list included people who had played major roles in many of the U.S.’s most high-stakes military operations.
Gabbard’s controversial actions garnered additional scrutiny following a video she posted in June warning of potential nuclear annihilation, which reportedly drew Trump’s ire. This incident illustrated the very real animosity simmering just below the surface between Gabbard and Trump. This put him publicly at odds with her assertion that Iran was years away from getting nuclear weapons. Trump attacked her predictions as alarmist. He said they were nothing but a stunt for self-promotion to increase her chances of moving up to higher office.
The big picture seems to illustrate a larger fight within the intelligence community over the issue of accountability and loyalty. An intelligence official remarked, “The CIA just wants to blame ODNI all the time,” highlighting ongoing tensions between various agencies.