Gabbard resigns as Trump’s top US intelligence official

Trump said Gabbard had done “a great ​job” but with her husband’s cancer diagnosis, “she, rightfully, wants to be with him, bringing him back to good health as they currently fight a tough ⁠battle together.”

A source familiar with the matter said that Gabbard had been forced out by the White House. The White House did not respond to a request for comment, but Davis Ingle, a White ​House spokesperson, said on X that Gabbard was departing in light of her husband’s diagnosis.

Trump has hinted in the past at differences with Gabbard on their approach to Iran, saying in March that she was “softer” ​than him on curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

In April, several sources told Reuters that Gabbard could lose her role in a broader cabinet shakeup.

A senior White House official said then that Trump had expressed displeasure with Gabbard in recent months. Another source with direct knowledge of the matter said the president had asked allies for their thoughts on potential replacements for his intelligence chief.

Gabbard had no deep intelligence experience when Trump tapped the former Democratic member of Congress to ​head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an agency created to oversee the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies after the September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on the U.S.

A member of the ​Hawaii National Guard, she served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005, became an officer, transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel.