On August 21, 2025, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) announced a sweeping reorganization, marking one of the most dramatic shake-ups in the U.S. intelligence community in recent memory. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a figure no stranger to controversy, revealed plans to slash the agency’s staff by nearly half and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually. The move, which she framed as a necessary corrective to years of bureaucratic bloat and politicization, has ignited fierce debate in Washington and beyond.
Gabbard’s announcement was both bold and blunt. “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 in a statement, 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 numbers are staggering. As of February 2025, the ODNI employed roughly 2,000 people. The downsizing, according to CBS News national security contributor Samantha Vinograd, will bring that number down to about 1,300—a reduction of around 40%. Gabbard’s office said that about 500 staffers had already been let go since she assumed the role earlier this year. The agency, which coordinates intelligence from 18 different organizations across the federal government, is tasked with synthesizing information for the president and other senior policymakers.
Gabbard’s restructuring targets several specific offices within the ODNI. The Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center, Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, External Research Council, and Strategic Futures Group are all slated for significant cuts or outright elimination. The ODNI argued that many of these offices were redundant and that their essential functions could be absorbed elsewhere within the intelligence community.
The FMIC, in particular, has become a lightning rod in this debate. Created by the Biden administration in 2022, its mission was to track foreign influence operations, especially those aimed at U.S. elections. But Gabbard and her allies have accused the center of overstepping its bounds. According to an ODNI fact sheet, the FMIC “was used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition.” The fact sheet further alleged that the center coordinated with Big Tech platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google to remove stories such as the 2020 New York Post report about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was initially flagged over concerns of Russian disinformation. That laptop has since been authenticated, though many of the more sensational allegations about the Bidens remain unproven.
Gabbard’s critiques extend beyond the FMIC. She has launched a campaign to discredit the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin "aspired" to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election. Gabbard has called this a “manufactured” narrative, insisting that the Obama administration sowed falsehoods about Russian intentions. Ironically, as highlighted by multiple outlets, Gabbard herself has been accused of echoing foreign misinformation in the past—defending Russia’s actions in Ukraine and repeating debunked Russian intelligence about Hillary Clinton.
Reactions in Congress have split sharply along party lines. Republican Senator Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, praised the overhaul 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.” Cotton added, “I look forward to working with Director Gabbard to implement these reforms and provide the ODNI with the legislative relief necessary to ensure our Intelligence Community can focus on its core mission: stealing secrets from our adversaries.”
Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s vice chair, was far less sanguine. “But given Director Gabbard’s track record of politicizing intelligence—including her decision just yesterday to revoke security clearances from career national security officials—I have no confidence that she is the right person to carry out this weighty responsibility,” Warner said, promising rigorous congressional oversight. Warner emphasized that any reforms must strengthen, not weaken, national security.
Experts outside government have also weighed in with concern. Matthew Levinger, director of the National Security Studies Program at George Washington University, told TNND that national security depends on “clear and independent analysis of critical short-term and long-term threats.” He warned that “failure to identify threats could cost American lives and billions, even trillions, of dollars worth of damage to the U.S.” Levinger questioned whether efficiency was truly the main objective of Gabbard’s proposal, noting that the announced cuts “seem to be occurring with an axe rather than a scalpel.” He also pointed out that the ODNI’s own fact sheet only specifically itemized $86 million in cuts, leaving the path to $700 million in annual savings unclear. “My concern is that by defunding parts of the intelligence community that are producing analysis that may be unwelcome to senior policymakers, U.S. leaders are blinding themselves to potential future challenges that require an agile and robust response,” Levinger said.
The restructuring is in line with broader cost-cutting efforts championed by the Trump administration. The Associated Press noted that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has overseen mass layoffs across the federal government, and the ODNI cuts are the latest in a series of moves to streamline federal agencies. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence operations, including those related to U.S. elections. The State Department also recently shuttered its office dedicated to countering misinformation from foreign adversaries such as Russia, China, and Iran.
Supporters of the changes argue that consolidating intelligence functions will reduce redundancy and sharpen the focus of U.S. intelligence agencies. Gabbard herself has said that “refocusing FMIC’s mission” alone would save taxpayers at least $7 million per year. But critics warn that the cuts could leave the U.S. less prepared to detect and respond to foreign threats, especially those targeting the integrity of elections. Emerson Brooking of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab told the Associated Press that the FMIC was not redundant, but rather “was supposed to solve for redundancy.” He described its task of integrating intelligence on foreign influence as “both important and extremely boring.”
As the dust settles, one thing is clear: the debate over the future of American intelligence is far from over. Whether Gabbard’s reforms will bring greater efficiency or expose new vulnerabilities remains to be seen. For now, the intelligence community—and the nation it serves—are bracing for change.
