Tulsi Gabbard resigns as top US intelligence official: What to know
Gabbard wrote in a resignation letter that she was stepping down to spend more time with her husband, filmmaker Abraham Williams, who she said has been diagnosed with bone cancer.
“My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer,” Ms. Gabbard said in her resignation letter, a copy of which was released by her office. “He faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months. At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle.”
The letter was posted on social media by both Gabbard and Donald Trump. “Unfortunately, after having done a great job, Tulsi Gabbard will be leaving the Administration on June 30,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Tulsi has done an incredible job, and we will miss her,” Trump said.
The context: Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, is the latest senior intelligence official to depart the Trump administration. In March, the nation’s top counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, resigned, citing his objections to the administration’s decision to go to war with Iran.
In recent months, she has increasingly been linked to the Trump administration’s efforts to find evidence of supposed voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election — a widely debunked proposition that the president continues to advocate.
Gabbard has at times been out of step with the White House’s public messaging on the war with Iran. In March, she testified to Senate lawmakers that after the June 2025 US B-2 bomber strikes on key Iranian nuclear facilities, Iran had made “no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capacity.”
Three weeks before Gabbard’s Senate testimony, Trump alleged during the annual State of the Union address on Feb. 25 that Iran had been attempting to restart its nuclear enrichment program.
The unclassified version of the ODNI’s 2026 Annual Threat Assessment — an annual report released by Gabbard’s office that summarizes information gathered from across the US intelligence community — also contradicted the president’s claim.
The announcement of her upcoming departure comes as the Trump administration weighs options to resume the war with Iran if Tehran does not agree to Washington’s demands over its nuclear program.
What’s next: Deputy Director of National Intelligence Aaron Lukas will serve as acting director once Gabbard leaves office, Trump said on Friday.
Lukas, a veteran Central Intelligence Agency officer, served as deputy senior director for Europe and Russia at the White House National Security Council during Trump’s first term.
