Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced a transformation of the agency Wednesday that will cut the ‘bloated’ ODNI by more than 40% by the end of the year and save taxpayers more than $700 million annually, all while executing its core national security and intelligence mission ‘in the most agile, effective, and efficient way.’
Gabbard, on Wednesday, announced what she described as a ‘long-overdue’ transformation, that will refocus ODNI and eliminate offices that were involved in the politicization of intelligence.
‘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,’ Gabbard said. ‘ODNI and the IC must make serious changes to fulfill its responsibility to the American people and the U.S. Constitution by focusing on our core mission: find the truth and provide objective, unbiased, timely intelligence to the President and policymakers. 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.’
Gabbard said that ‘under President Trump’s leadership, ODNI 2.0 is the start of a new era focused on serving our country, fulfilling our core national security mission with excellence, always grounded in the U.S. Constitution, and ensuring the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.’
ODNI was first created after the 9/11 terror attacks and exposed systemic failures across the intelligence community. ODNI’s purpose was to integrate intelligence from and provide oversight over all intelligence community elements in order to ensure the intelligence provided to the president and policymakers was ‘timely, accurate, and apolitical.’
‘Unfortunately, two decades later, ODNI has fallen short in fulfilling its mandate,’ an ODNI spokesperson said.
ODNI 2.0 is set to eliminate ‘redundant missions, functions and personnel,’ and is set to make ‘critical investments’ in areas that support Trump’s national intelligence priorities.
ODNI officials said that ODNI 2.0 will focus on rebuilding trust, exposing politicization and weaponization of intelligence, holding bad actors accountable, saving American tax dollars, and focusing on their ‘core mission,’ which is to protect ‘the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.’
As part of the effort, Gabbard is closing ODNI’s Reston Campus and moving the National Intelligence Council to the main ODNI campus, which will ensure the all essential intelligence functions are kept ‘under one roof,’ which officials say will ‘enable savings,’ and will ensure ‘greater efficiency and oversight, and integration across the ODNI and IC.’
Gabbard is also leading intelligence community-wide reforms for ‘efficient and effective operations.’ Gabbard is expected to issue guidance to create a streamlined contracting authority for companies that pursue emerging technologies, and that are already approved for business with the IC to provide services quickly.
Gabbard is also leading an IC-wide effort to ‘rebalance and optimize’ its civilian and contractor workforce to ‘reduce bloat, increase analytic capability, remove stovepipes, eradicate politicization and analytic bias, accelerate information sharing, and increase efficiency to ensure mission success,’ officials said.
Meanwhile, Gabbard has also ended non-merit-based recruitment of intelligence community professionals.
As for ODNI components, the National Counterterrorism Center is building capability to increase two-way information sharing between federal, state, and local law enforcement to secure borders and communities.
As for the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, Gabbard is calling for a renewed focus on security clearance reform, deterring counterintelligence threats, and oversight of investigations and probes of unauthorized leaks of classified information.