WASHINGTON – Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Aug. 20 that her office overseeing all U.S. intelligence agencies will undergo a massive reorganization and slash its spending by 40% to combat "abuse of power" and "politicized weaponization of intelligence."

Gabbard called the overhaul ODNI 2.0 in a news release, and its broad contours suggest it is the biggest restructuring of the agency since it was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist acts to improve intelligence sharing and operations. One of its goals is "reduce bloat by nearly 50%," in a reference to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's workforce.

The move is expected to save taxpayers over $700 million annually and better enable ODNI to focus on “fulfilling its critical role of serving as the central hub for intelligence integration, strategic guidance, and oversight over the Intelligence Community,” said the late afternoon news release.

“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 in the release. “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.”

Intel agency long a focus of Trump's ire

The ODNI was established in April 2005 after the blue ribbon 9/11 Commission exposed systemic failures across the intelligence community. Its purpose was to integrate intelligence from – and provide oversight over – all of the various intel elements of the U.S. government, including the CIA, the eavesdropping National Security Agency and several military intelligence agencies.

Trump has frequently attacked the agency as politicized against him, and has vowed, along with Gabbard, to downsize and restructure it. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sponsored legislation June 27 to cap the ODNI staff at 650, down from what he said was about 1,600, to eliminate certain reporting requirements and to transfer some key counterintelligence and counterproliferation responsibilities back to the CIA.

The ODNI news release said ODNI 2.0 will eliminate redundant missions, functions and personnel, and make “critical investments in areas that support the President’s national intelligence priorities.”

It will also expose what President Donald Trump and Gabbard have called the politicization and weaponization of intelligence, and hold “bad actors accountable.”

Going after those involved in 'Russia Hoax'

That effort expands on a campaign that Gabbard already has launched to investigate Democrats in the Obama and Biden administrations that she claims falsified intelligence to concoct a false “Russia Hoax” about Trump complicity in the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election.

Multiple investigations and reports, including a bipartisan effort by the Senate Intelligence Committee, have found that Russia did indeed meddle in the 2016 election to help Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

One key target of the new overhaul is the ODNI’s efforts to call out Russia for continued interference in U.S. elections, including the 2024 president campaign, through its multi-agency Foreign Malign Influence Center or FMIC.

Refocusing FMIC’s mission will save American taxpayers at least $7 million per year, according to an ODNI 2.0 fact sheet released by the spy agency. It did not provide details of what that refocus will entail, or a similar plan to overhaul the ODNI’s National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center (NCBC) and its Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC).

“ODNI’s hyper-focus on election-related work notably began in 2017, immediately following the publication of the manufactured Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) falsely alleging Putin ‘aspired’ to help President Trump win the 2016 election,” the fact sheet said.

'No confidence' Gabbard is right person to conduct ODNI overhaul

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, acknowledged in a statement that there is broad, bipartisan agreement that the ODNI “is in need of thoughtful reform.”

The current Intelligence Authorization Act directs Gabbard to submit a plan to Congress outlining her proposed changes, Warner said, “and we will carefully review her proposals and conduct rigorous oversight to ensure any reforms strengthen, not weaken, our national security.”

“But given Director Gabbard’s track record of politicizing intelligence – including her decision just yesterday to revoke security clearances from career national security officials – I have no confidence that she is the right person to carry out this weighty responsibility," Warner said.

Gabbard announced Aug. 19 that Trump had directed her office to revoke security clearances from 37 former intelligence officials for “politicizing and manipulating intelligence.” Most were affiliated with the Biden and Obama administrations or signatories to public protests of Trump’s policies.

Warner and other Democrats have also criticized Gabbard for forming a task force that amounts to nothing less than a "witch hunt" for officers and analysts within the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies it deems disloyal to Trump.

Cotton, the committee chair, called ODNI 2.0 “an important step to return the department to its original size, scope and mission.”

“I look forward to working with @DNIGabbard to implement these reforms and ensuring the IC focuses on its core mission: stealing secrets from our adversaries,” Cotton said in a post on X.

This story has been updated to include additional information.

Josh Meyer is USA TODAY's Domestic Security Correspondent. You can reach him by email at jmeyer@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @JoshMeyerDC and Bluesky at @joshmeyerdc.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gabbard: ODNI to slash costs, workforce by 40% as part of major intel agency overhaul

Reporting by Josh Meyer, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect