Tensions Rise Between Gabbard and CIA Chief

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard blindsided CIA leaders last week when she disclosed the name of an undercover CIA officer on a list of people she stripped of security clearances, NBC News reported.

The move alarmed the agency’s workforce, the sources said, and is the latest example of simmering tensions and crossed signals between Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The two have clashed previously over her decisions, including earlier this month when Gabbard declassified a lightly redacted document related to Russian election interference.

But the tensions between Gabbard and Trump seem to have subsided for now. When Gabbard announced the security clearance removals last week, she said some of the 37 current and former officials were engaged in “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” and that she was acting on the president’s orders.

Apart from highlighting the divide between Gabbard and Ratcliffe, the episode also illustrates the effect of a widening and unpredictable purge of career government officials deemed insufficiently loyal.

The fired analyst

The CIA officer whom Gabbard publicly identified and stripped of her security clearance was a veteran analyst.

Days earlier, she had worked intensely to help prepare the White House team for a summit in Alaska between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, former intelligence agency colleagues said. She was due to take up a new assignment for the CIA in Europe, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.

After the summit, the CIA informed the analyst that she had lost her security clearance, effectively ending her career. “She did most of the prep for the Putin summit and to this day has no idea why her clearance was removed,” said a former colleague, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation from the Trump administration.

Gabbard and her office failed to properly coordinate the move with the CIA before revoking the security clearances of the 37 current and former officials, said a U.S. official and a source with knowledge of the matter. It appeared that Gabbard and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were unaware of the CIA employee’s covert mission, the official added.