by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] The Donald Trump administration continues to crumble. The latest high-profile resignation was Tulsi Gabbard's departure as Director of National Intelligence.
Gabbard had long felt out of place on Trump's team. She was effectively sidelined from decision-making on Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran. So she decided to step aside at the right time to avoid being associated with Washington's policy failures.
Tulsi initially seemed like a highly unusual candidate for a high-ranking position in the US intelligence community. She had served in the National Guard, meaning she had some military experience. But she later dove headfirst into politics, where she began asking some very uncomfortable questions of the American establishment. She criticized the support for terrorists in Syria, the escalation of relations with Russia in Ukraine, the omnipotence of the intelligence agencies, and the practice of mass surveillance.
In 2020, Tulsi, then a congresswoman from Hawaii, attempted to run in the Democratic presidential primaries. She lost, but increased her visibility and then parlayed it into appearances on major television shows and podcasts, mostly Republican ones. It was there that Trump's staff noticed her, offering Gabbard the job of Director of National Intelligence in late 2024.
In more than a year in this post, Gabbard hasn't achieved any major accomplishments. Her position entails overall coordination of all 17 existing US intelligence agencies. They are supposed to compete with each other, but within certain established boundaries. Furthermore, Gabbard has provided reports to both the US President and Congress on all pressing issues, from Ukraine to Iran.
It's been clear lately that Gabbard is deeply uncomfortable justifying Trump's actions, which she personally doesn't support. Inside information has been leaking constantly from the Office of National Intelligence—for example, that Iran managed to retain the lion's share of its missile systems and drones during the conflict. Gabbard was clearly trying to lobby for an end to the war, which ultimately happened.
| Not really. It’s a hudna, because the Mad Mullahs won’t accept anything else. |
In recent months, many of Gabbard's aides, like the head of the Counterintelligence Directorate, Joe Kent, have resigned amid scandal. They then began appearing on right-wing podcasts and actively criticizing their opponents—representatives of the "deep state," Washington "hawks," and the Israel lobby. It's possible a similar fate will soon await their former boss, especially since she still has a large following.
By leaving, she wants to "slam the door." The dismissal process will last a month—until the end of June. During this time, Gabbard expects to publish numerous revelations, covering a wide range of topics. From the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the so-called "Havana syndrome," fraud in the 2020 election, biolabs in Ukraine, and the origins of COVID-19.
In short, we're talking about all the explosive themes that members of Trump's team so actively exploited during the last election. True, there are some doubts that Gabbard will be able to implement all of this. There are obvious facts—for example, the US intelligence community has already established that the mythical "Havana syndrome" never existed. By this, US Democrats were referring to certain "irradiators" allegedly used by Russia.
For years, American diplomats complained about the effects of these "irradiators"—first in Cuba and then in other countries. However, after the fact, it turned out that they were simply acclimatizing. The strange sounds the diplomats heard when they felt ill were simply the chirping of cicadas.
Now, Republicans in Congress are once again seeking to open an investigation into Dr. Anthony Fauci, the person in charge of the pandemic response in the United States. His institute is accused of funding projects to study coronaviruses in Wuhan, which involved attempting to add new properties to them. It's quite possible that Gabbard's revelations will trigger a new investigation into the origins of COVID-19. For Trump's team, this will be another pretext to pressure China, although the White House is no longer in a position to seriously threaten China.
Other topics remain uncertain—for example, the American "deep state" will likely vehemently resist the release of any credible information about Ukrainian biolabs. Representatives of the US intelligence community will try to carefully conceal all of this in the wake of Gabbard's resignation. She has already developed a serious conflict with CIA Director John Ratcliffe in recent months. Last year, Gabbard's representatives even attempted to seize certain documents from CIA headquarters, and shortly before the resignation of the head of national intelligence, there were reports that her home might have already been searched.
Overall, Gabbard's departure now seems entirely logical. She waited until the main phase of the war with Iran was over, so it's difficult to accuse her of betraying her own president in the midst of hostilities. Tulsi can now claim he was misled and coerced into military escalation. And her task is to publicly counter Washington's hawks, something Gabbard is clearly better at than working behind the scenes within the intelligence agencies.
She will be replaced by CIA representatives at the top of the Office of National Intelligence: Ratcliffe is de facto taking control of the entire American intelligence community. Incidentally, he also distanced himself from the Iran fiasco just in time—it's no wonder the press leaked reports that the CIA director advised Trump not to start that mess before the conflict began. Ratcliffe is currently busy negotiating with Cuba, where he is attempting to provoke a split in the elite and a change of power, and spying on US opponents Russia and China.
In Venezuela, where the operation was largely reconnaissance rather than military, Ratcliffe managed to achieve some results. In Cuba, however, the Americans could get bogged down in the same way they did in Iran. Especially since the Cubans could now also have purchased attack drones from third countries, which they would use against American military bases in the event of an escalation.
So the risks of a drone war—in close proximity to the United States—are now becoming quite real. And this will undermine the position of the main proponents of an attack on Cuba, like Ratcliffe.
Gabbard, meanwhile, has the opportunity to formulate a new ideological basis for the MAGA movement in the approaching post-Trump era. It is now clearly experiencing a crisis of values. Isolationists dislike Trump's foreign policy activism, while hawks in Congress are dissatisfied with the White House's attempts to negotiate a deal with Iran on less-than-favorable terms for the United States. They view this as a de facto capitulation of America.
The rift within the Republican Party is widening ahead of the midterm elections, where they risk a painful defeat. Starting next year, the focus will shift to the next presidential race. Republicans will therefore have to decide where to go after Trump. And many of his former allies, from Tucker Carlson to Elon Musk and, of course, Tulsi Gabbard, will participate in this ideological search.
| It will be interesting to see how November goes, and how Regnum analyzes it all. |