Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, did not inform the White House that her office was revoking the security clearances of 37 people – including top deputies to the CIA director, John Ratcliffe – before it happened last month, according to three people familiar with matter.
The move caused consternation because it resulted in the White House not having an opportunity to closely vet the list before it became public and there appeared to be no paper trail from the president directing the effort, the people said.
As a result, officials only realized after the fact that Gabbard had managed to pull the security clearances of career CIA officials, at least one of whom was a top adviser to Ratcliffe and had worked on some of the US’s most sensitive military operations, the people said.
The list also included two Democratic congressional staffers – Maher Bitar, the national security adviser to senator Adam Schiff, and Thomas West, an aide on the Senate foreign relations committee – prompting fears the administration would be thrust into a messy separation-of-powers issue.
Weeks later, several of Trump’s top advisers remain deeply frustrated with Gabbard and view the episode as a blunder that comes as Trump is skeptical of the intelligence community and has suggested dismantling the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI).
It also appears to have deepened existing animosity between Gabbard, whose most important job as the director of national intelligence is delivering the president’s daily briefing and overseeing the intelligence agencies, and the CIA, whose officers actually produce the brief.
Trump advisers inside and outside of the administration have complained that Gabbard’s deputy chief of staff, Alexa Henning, did not explain to them how the list was compiled and the underlying evidence to warrant pulling the security clearances, the people said.
A senior intelligence official disputed this account and said Gabbard told Trump in the Oval Office that she had compiled names of officers who had worked on the intelligence assessments on Russia’s malign influence operations during the 2016 election who should be fired.
Trump replied to Gabbard that if those people had worked on the Russia intelligence assessments and they were still employed in the federal government, they should be removed, and Gabbard was merely executing the president’s agenda, the intelligence official said.
The intelligence official also claimed the list was emailed to the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles; the White House counsel, David Warrington; communications chiefs Steven Cheung and Taylor Budowich; the national security council; and the chiefs of staff at every major intelligence agency.
“The CIA just wants to blame ODNI all the time,” the official said.
A White House spokesperson did not address whether there had been advance notice or when the emails were sent but said in a statement: “Director Gabbard is doing a phenomenal job and the White House has worked closely with her on implementing the President’s objectives.
“The entire administration is aligned on ensuring those who have weaponized their clearances to manipulate intelligence, leak classified intelligence without authorization, and many other egregious acts are held to account,” the spokesperson said.
Rescinding security clearances was supposed to be part of an effort to correct what Trump’s advisers view as flaws in intelligence assessments and to punish Trump’s political enemies for allegedly mischaracterizing intelligence about Russian malign influence operations during the 2016 election.
Gabbard said in the memo announcing the revocations last month that her actions were at Trump’s direction and claimed that the people targeted were involved in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance partisan agendas, or had leaked classified information.
“Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right,” Gabbard wrote. “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.”
It was also in keeping with an executive order and followed the administration pulling security clearances for dozens of Trump’s political adversaries including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as other figures from Trump’s first impeachment.
Gabbard is not expected to face significant ramifications over the episode, in large part because she has emerged relatively unscathed from other fraught moments, including when Trump in June publicly contradicted her assessment that Iran was far from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump said in response to a question about Gabbard’s testimony that Iran had decided not to make a nuclear bomb, shortly after she was notably absent from a key meeting at Camp David on the matter. “I think they were very close to having it.”
Gabbard also drew Trump’s ire when she posted a video in June warning of nuclear annihilation. Trump harangued Gabbard, saying it would scare people and that she appeared more engaged in self-promotion in order to set herself up for higher office, a person familiar with the matter said.
