By Yiğit Saner
The resignation of US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard shows that weapons have been drawn inside the Washington administration. Gabbard, the figure overseeing the entire American intelligence apparatus, including the most prominent agencies such as the CIA and FBI, announced that she would leave office on June 30.
After Donald Trump’s election victory in November 2024, the announcement that Gabbard would be appointed as the DNI director sparked major backlash, particularly among Atlanticist circles in Washington. During her time in the House of Representatives, Gabbard had committed what many considered “unforgivable sins,” such as defending Russian President Vladimir Putin and meeting former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.
Gabbard came under heavy attack in the American mainstream media, being labeled a “traitor,” an “agent,” and “a threat to US national security.” Yet Trump did not back down and appointed her as the DNI director. However, it would not take long for relations between the two to deteriorate. At this point, the main factor escalating tensions would be Iran…
‘The DNI Was Hostilely Taken Over’
Gabbard cited the rare bone cancer diagnosis given to her spouse as the reason for stepping down. However, both the growing frictions within the Trump administration over the Iran war and the wave of resignations in recent months have raised questions about other motives behind the decision…
Indeed, striking claims immediately began circulating in the American media. Steve Bannon, who served as an adviser during Trump’s first term and remains one of MAGA’s influential public figures, said that the CIA and Mossad were behind
Tulsi Gabbard’s departure. Speaking on his podcast, Bannon declared: “This is a hostile takeover of the DNI.”
Although Bannon did not elaborate on his claims, another figure expressing similar views was Turkish-American television host Cenk Uygur. On his program The Young Turks, Uygur said it had been alleged that Gabbard refused to go along with Trump’s plans to restart the war with Iran and that this may have been the real reason behind her resignation.
“She is doing the right thing here,” Uygur said, pointing out that Joe Kent — the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center and a subordinate of Tulsi Gabbard — had followed the exact same path by resigning after the US-Israeli attack on Iran.
The Famous Iran Report
The Trump-Gabbard friction over the Iran wars began shortly before the 12-Day War of June 2025 and continued afterward.
The first months of 2025 were marked by repeated speeches from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming — as he had done since the late 1990s — that Iran was extremely close to obtaining nuclear weapons. By March, however, Gabbard stated during the DNI’s annual threat assessment briefing that US intelligence possessed no evidence indicating Iran was close to producing a nuclear weapon.
Those remarks would repeatedly be placed before Trump in the days ahead, because despite the DNI report, the US president gave Netanyahu the green light for an attack, citing Tehran’s alleged nuclear weapons program as justification.
Trump: I Don’t Care What She Said
By June, war had already broken out and Trump was preparing to order strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. After the strikes, when the DNI director’s assessments were brought to his attention, the president responded in his characteristic fashion:
“I don’t care what she said. She is wrong. I think they were very close to having a nuclear weapon.”
An Era Of Helplessness
In response, Gabbard released a video warning that the world was “closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before,” while taking care not to publicly clash with Trump during the post-12-Day War period.
However, after the new Iran war began on February 28, 2026, she found herself in a difficult position during testimony before congressional intelligence committees when she was reminded of her report stating that Tehran was not close to building a nuclear weapon. Gabbard was ultimately forced to respond as follows:
“It is not the responsibility of the intelligence community to determine whether a threat is imminent.”
‘Illegal’ Clash With The CIA: ‘They Tracked Every Keystroke’
Although the DNI attempted to become an institutional center of resistance against the hawkish wave in Washington, she was left isolated. Moreover, the pressure was not coming solely from the White House; she was also being surrounded by institutions directly under her own authority. Veteran journalist Catherine Herridge’s investigation, published shortly before the resignation, revealed the scale of this siege.
According to Herridge, the CIA had illegally placed under surveillance the “Director’s Initiatives Group” (DIG), which operated directly under Gabbard. DIG was reviewing some of the most sensitive files in the US government, ranging from the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King to the origins of COVID-19, Havana Syndrome, and internal surveillance activities during the Biden era.
The CIA reportedly monitored “every keystroke” made on the computers used by the special task force. The scandal was eventually brought before Congress, and the allegedly illegal surveillance even included missions personally directed by Trump himself.
Intervention And Power Struggle
The CIA’s activities were not limited to surveillance alone. Investigators were prevented from interviewing key analysts, reviews of internal communications from the Biden era were halted, and several contractor employees who met with the DIG team were abruptly fired.
Institutional hierarchy, from top to bottom, had effectively collapsed. According to backstage information reported by CNN, a fierce power struggle was unfolding between the DNI director and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Gabbard reportedly believed Ratcliffe was bypassing the formal chain of command, repeatedly cutting her out and communicating directly with President Trump.
With her institutional authority undermined by both the CIA director and the White House, the ground beneath Gabbard was systematically pulled away. Ultimately, when the “Director’s Initiatives Group” was dissolved, the CIA effectively carried out a physical raid, seizing 40 boxes of documents prepared for declassification and transporting them back to CIA headquarters.
Is Revenge A Dish Best Served Cold?
Yet Gabbard does not appear willing to surrender easily in her struggle against the CIA. According to the Daily Wire, before stepping down she promised to release the findings of several high-profile investigations.
The outlet claimed that materials related to “Havana Syndrome,” the COVID-19 pandemic, the “politicization of the federal government,” the 2020 elections, and other matters could be released within the coming month.
The Daily Wire also reported that Gabbard placed particular importance on investigations surrounding the alleged “Russiagate” affair after the 2016 election and believed the Obama administration had weaponized the intelligence community against Trump.
The Purge Of Resistance
For years, Tulsi Gabbard stood out as one of the rare American politicians openly opposing the chain of US interventions stretching from Iraq to Libya and challenging Washington’s doctrine of “endless wars.”
One of the main reasons she aligned herself with Trump was the Republican leader’s promise to the American people that he would “end endless wars.” However, as the balance of power inside the White House shifted with the Iran wars and the intervention in Venezuela, Gabbard’s purge demonstrated that even within the Trump administration, the anti-interventionist line was unable to establish itself as a permanent center of gravity.
Now, one question remains in Washington: Did Gabbard merely leave office, or was one of the last major anti-war resistance points within the American intelligence system eliminated?