Trump's top advisers are 'deeply frustrated' over Tulsi Gabbard's latest 'blunder': report
Donald Trump's Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard is in hot water with the president's top advisers, according to new reporting.
Gabbard, a former Democrat who was accepted into the White House fold, left Trump's chief aides completely in the dark when it came to certain security clearances, according to the Guardian's weekend report.
In an exclusive called "Tulsi Gabbard did not alert White House before revoking 37 security clearances," the outlet reported, "Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, did not inform the White House that her office was revoking the security clearances of 37 people – including top deputies to the CIA director, John Ratcliffe – before it happened last month, according to three people familiar with matter."
The article continues, stating, "The move caused consternation because it resulted in the White House not having an opportunity to closely vet the list before it became public and there appeared to be no paper trail from the president directing the effort, the people said."
"As a result, officials only realized after the fact that Gabbard had managed to pull the security clearances of career CIA officials, at least one of whom was a top adviser to Ratcliffe and had worked on some of the US’s most sensitive military operations, the people said," according to the report. "The list also included two Democratic congressional staffers – Maher Bitar, the national security adviser to senator Adam Schiff, and Thomas West, an aide on the Senate foreign relations committee – prompting fears the administration would be thrust into a messy separation-of-powers issue."
But things reportedly didn't end there, as now some close to Trump are apparently holding a grudge.
"Weeks later, several of Trump’s top advisers remain deeply frustrated with Gabbard and view the episode as a blunder that comes as Trump is skeptical of the intelligence community and has suggested dismantling the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI)," according to The Guardian's reporting.