By MICHELLE L. PRICE and SEUNG MIN KIM Associated Press
President Donald Trump says he wants his new acting director of national intelligence to cut the office, which has already been significantly scaled back during his second term. Trump noted aboard Air Force One the size of the office has been "way too high for way too long" and if Bill Pulte cuts it, he "wouldn't mind." The Republican president said in an earlier interview with The Wall Street Journal he has asked Pulte to start the process of firing employees. Trump says Pulte will stay in the acting position depending on how long it takes to get his successor confirmed. The president says he's considering five people but hasn't named them.
By SEUNG MIN KIM and DAVID KLEPPER Associated Press
President Donald Trump is pushing back against claims by the director of the National Counterterrorism Center about the motivations for the Iran war. In announcing his resignation Tuesday, Joe Kent claimed Iran "posed no imminent threat" to the United States. Trump says Iran is a "tremendous threat." Kent also says it's clear the U.S. started the war "due to pressure from Israel." The Republican president previously has denied Israel forced the U.S. to act. Kent is a former Washington state political candidate with connections to right-wing extremists. As head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Kent was in charge of an agency tasked with analyzing and detecting terrorist threats.
By AAMER MADHANI, ERIC TUCKER and ALI SWENSON Associated Press
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence says it will dramatically reduce its workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually. The move Wednesday amounts to a major downsizing of the responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says the office "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." The reorganization is part of a broader administration effort to rethink how it tracks foreign threats to American elections, a topic that has become politically loaded.
By DAVID KLEPPER and FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press
Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's pick to be director of national intelligence, has moved a step closer to Senate confirmation. The Senate Intelligence Committee voted behind closed doors Tuesday to advance Gabbard's nomination to the full Senate for a vote. Gabbard is a former Democratic congresswoman and one of Trump's more divisive nominees, given past comments sympathetic to Russia, her meeting with Syria's now-deposed leader and her past support for government leaker Edward Snowden. Given thin Republican margins in the Senate, she will need almost all GOP senators to vote yes in order to win confirmation.
