US Intelligence Chief Gabbard Seeks to Takeover Counterintelligence Control from FBI

Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence Tul­si Gab­bard is seek­ing to trans­fer coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence author­i­ty from the FBI to her office through leg­is­la­tion, claim­ing the bureau is con­trolled by deep state actors. On 7 Novem­ber 2025, The Atlantic report­ed that Gab­bard’s office is back­ing House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Chair Rick Craw­ford’s bill to estab­lish ODNI as the lead coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence agency. The arti­cle begins:

Through­out Don­ald Trump’s first term, his third cam­paign, and the first 10 months of his sec­ond term in office, he and his allies warned dark­ly of a “deep state” seek­ing to thwart his every move. In an address to the Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Con­fer­ence in Sep­tem­ber, Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence Tul­si Gab­bard said that “lead­ers in the intel­li­gence community”—the mas­sive bureau­cra­cy she runs—are among the “trai­tors to the Con­sti­tu­tion” who have tried to under­mine the pres­i­dent because they oppose his poli­cies. This kind of pub­lic invec­tive is par for the course in the Trump admin­is­tra­tion. But these attacks have gen­er­at­ed real action: Gab­bard has revoked secu­ri­ty clear­ances of sup­posed Trump oppo­nents by the dozen and fired high-rank­ing staff while the Jus­tice Depart­ment busies itself with dis­miss­ing civ­il ser­vants and pros­e­cut­ing the pres­i­den­t’s ene­mies. Now Gab­bard’s agency, which coor­di­nates among the dif­fer­ent ele­ments of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty, is advo­cat­ing for leg­is­la­tion that would trans­fer sig­nif­i­cant author­i­ty over coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence to her office and away from an FBI that her staff has por­trayed as the home of a trai­tor­ous deep state.

Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/11/odni-trump-national-security/684859/

Key Points

• The leg­is­la­tion intro­duced by House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Chair Rick Craw­ford would cre­ate a Nation­al Coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence Cen­ter under the Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence with the pow­er to direct the FBI and CIA on coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence author­i­ties and require ODNI sign-off before agen­cies move for­ward with plans.
• A memo cir­cu­lat­ing among gov­ern­ment agen­cies warns that if we do noth­ing, the same deep state actors who have egre­gious­ly weaponized coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es will be empow­ered, por­tray­ing the FBI’s Coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence Divi­sion as irre­deemably politicized.
• The FBI warned in a let­ter to Con­gress that seri­ous and long-last­ing dam­age to U.S. nation­al secu­ri­ty would result if the intel­li­gence direc­tor’s office were to take over coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence author­i­ties, stat­ing that the pro­pos­al would sig­nif­i­cant­ly dupli­cate and con­fuse con­strained resources.
• A senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial stat­ed that the admin­is­tra­tion oppos­es trans­fer­ring coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence respon­si­bil­i­ties from the FBI to the ODNI, with FBI Direc­tor Kash Patel defend­ing his bureau’s turf despite pre­vi­ous­ly call­ing the agency one of the most cun­ning arms of the Deep State.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Russia Alignment: Kremlin Talking Points and State Media Support

Tul­si Gab­bard’s polit­i­cal tra­jec­to­ry reveals a con­sis­tent align­ment with Russ­ian geopo­lit­i­cal posi­tions and state media nar­ra­tives. Her appoint­ment as direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence raised sig­nif­i­cant con­cern among secu­ri­ty offi­cials due to her his­to­ry of echo­ing Krem­lin talk­ing points, begin­ning with her 2017 trip to Syr­ia, where she met Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Assad. Imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing Rus­si­a’s full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine in Feb­ru­ary 2022, Gab­bard blamed the Unit­ed States and NATO for pro­vok­ing the war by ignor­ing Rus­si­a’s secu­ri­ty con­cerns, despite her ear­li­er sup­port for Ukrain­ian resis­tance dur­ing the 2014 Crimean annexation.

Her most con­tro­ver­sial claims echo Moscow’s pro­pa­gan­da nar­ra­tives. Gab­bard has repeat­ed­ly pro­mot­ed base­less alle­ga­tions that the Unit­ed States covert­ly worked with Ukraine on dan­ger­ous bio­log­i­cal pathogens and was cul­pa­ble for the bomb­ing of the Nord Stream pipeline, accu­sa­tions Euro­pean pros­e­cu­tors and U.S. offi­cials have con­clu­sive­ly reject­ed. These posi­tions, along with claims that Ukraine isn’t actu­al­ly a democ­ra­cy and isn’t worth pro­tect­ing, direct­ly repli­cate Krem­lin dis­in­for­ma­tion strategies.

Gab­bard has become a “dar­ling of Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­dists and the Amer­i­can far-right,” receiv­ing enthu­si­as­tic cov­er­age from Moscow’s state media appa­ra­tus. Most trou­bling, as direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence, Gab­bard now over­sees intel­li­gence brief­in­gs for Trump while mon­i­tor­ing the same Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion she has been accused of ampli­fy­ing. Her reg­u­lar con­sump­tion of Russ­ian state pro­pa­gan­da, her defense of author­i­tar­i­an regimes, and her ampli­fi­ca­tion of Krem­lin nar­ra­tives have raised fun­da­men­tal ques­tions about her suit­abil­i­ty for lead­ing Amer­i­ca’s intel­li­gence community.

Exter­nal References:

• Three for­mer Gab­bard aides told ABC News she reg­u­lar­ly con­sumed Russ­ian state media RT
• Seat­tle Times: Russ­ian state media host called her “our girl­friend” and her Fox News appear­ances ampli­fied Krem­lin talk­ing points
• Har­vard’s Belfer Cen­ter com­piled com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis of Gab­bard’s con­tro­ver­sial Rus­sia posi­tions and media descrip­tions of her rela­tion­ship with Moscow

Dis­claimer: The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.