On August 21, 2025, the Trump administration and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), marking the agency’s most dramatic downsizing since its inception. The plan, dubbed "ODNI 2.0," will slash the agency’s workforce by up to 50% and cut its annual budget by more than $700 million—a move that has sent shockwaves through Washington and the broader intelligence community.
Gabbard, who took office with a mandate to reform what she called a "bloated and inefficient" bureaucracy, announced the changes in a series of statements and briefings. "Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence," she said, as reported by the Associated Press. She added, "Ending the weaponization of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people’s trust which has long been eroded."
The ODNI was established in 2004 in the wake of the September 11 attacks, tasked with coordinating the work of 18 U.S. intelligence agencies, including those focused on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Since then, the agency’s staff ballooned to about 1,850 employees. According to UPI, the Trump administration had already trimmed about 500 positions since the start of Trump’s second term, and Gabbard’s latest plan aims to cut an additional 40-50% of the workforce by October 2025. Vacant positions will not be refilled, further shrinking the agency’s footprint.
Gabbard’s overhaul isn’t limited to personnel cuts. The agency’s Reston, Virginia, facilities will be shuttered and operations consolidated at headquarters, according to UPI. The External Research Council will also be closed, and the National Intelligence University will now fall under the Defense Department’s National Defense University. The changes, Gabbard said, are designed to "refocus the agency’s mission in the most agile, effective and efficient way."
One of the most controversial aspects of the reorganization is the elimination of the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which was created by the Biden administration in 2022 to coordinate and integrate intelligence on foreign influence operations—particularly those targeting U.S. elections. The center had played a visible role in debunking disinformation, including a widely circulated Russian video in 2024 that falsely depicted mail-in ballots being destroyed in Pennsylvania. According to the Associated Press, Gabbard argued the center’s work had become "redundant" and its "hyper-focus" on elections was "used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition." She announced that its core functions would be merged into other parts of the government.
Not everyone agrees with Gabbard’s assessment. Emerson Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told the Associated Press, "It wasn’t redundant, it was supposed to solve for redundancy." Brooking argued that the center’s unique mission—parsing intelligence across agencies and notifying decision-makers—was both important and underappreciated.
The changes extend beyond the Foreign Malign Influence Center. Gabbard is also eliminating the units responsible for tracking weapons of mass destruction and cyber threats, stating those functions are already handled by other intelligence agencies. The National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center and Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center will see their duties absorbed into the ODNI’s Mission Integration Directorate and the National Intelligence Council. A group that produced long-range forecasts of global trends will also be disbanded, as detailed by Federal News Network.
Gabbard’s announcement came just hours after another headline-grabbing move: the revocation of security clearances for 37 current and former U.S. officials, including those who assessed Russian interference in the 2016 election and members of former President Joe Biden’s National Security Council. According to CNN, the list included individuals who had been central to evaluating Russia’s role in the 2016 election, which Trump won. "Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right. Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold," Gabbard stated.
This is not the first time the Trump administration has revoked security clearances for political figures and intelligence officials. Previous actions targeted former Vice President Kamala Harris, President Biden himself, and lawmakers involved in investigations into the January 6 Capitol riot. The administration has also declassified documents in recent months intended to cast doubt on the intelligence community’s judgments about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Predictably, the response in Congress has broken along party lines. Republican Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised the downsizing as "an important step towards returning ODNI to that original size, scope, and mission. And it will help make it a stronger and more effective national security tool for President Trump." On the other side, Democratic Senator Mark Warner pledged to review Gabbard’s proposals closely and "conduct rigorous oversight to ensure any reforms strengthen, not weaken, our national security." Warner added that he was "not confident that would be the case given Director Gabbard’s track record of politicizing intelligence."
Gabbard’s critics, including a spokesperson for former President Obama, have accused the Trump administration of using these intelligence shake-ups as a "distraction" from unpopular policies and to deflect attention from Trump’s alleged ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Meanwhile, supporters argue that the reforms are long overdue and necessary to restore efficiency and accountability to an agency many see as having strayed from its core mission.
The move echoes broader cost-cutting efforts across the federal government, led by the Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk. Mass layoffs and agency consolidations have become a hallmark of the administration’s approach to federal bureaucracy, with the intelligence community now the latest target.
As the dust settles, the future of U.S. intelligence coordination remains uncertain. The ODNI’s original mandate was to break down silos and foster collaboration among the nation’s sprawling intelligence agencies. With its staff and resources now drastically reduced, questions linger about whether the agency can still fulfill that mission. For now, Gabbard insists that "ODNI 2.0 is the start of a new era focused on serving our country, fulfilling our core national security mission with excellence, always grounded in the U.S. Constitution, and ensuring the safety, security and freedom of the American people."
Whether these sweeping reforms will make the nation safer or leave critical gaps remains a matter of fierce debate in Washington and beyond.
