Spy agencies have exploded in size. Trump’s intel chiefs are the first to downsize.

by Emily Kopp

Since the FBI’s founding at the turn of the century, the intelligence community has grown from a domestic law enforcement operation to a sprawling $115 billion surveillance apparatus spanning 18 separate agencies.

Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did something uncommon in Washington: Taking on the swamp by cutting her own staff by 40% and redirecting $1 billion.

An Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) official told the Daily Caller News Foundation that efficiency efforts will continue as they transition to incoming successor Bill Pulte, whom Trump described as ready to oversee more terminations in an interview with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Friday.

“We look forward to working with Mr. Pulte and President Trump to continue that work and advance further initiatives aimed at rooting out deep state bad actors and securing saving for the American taxpayer,” an ODNI official told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Gabbard signaled when first confirmed to be Trump’s intelligence chief in February 2025 that she was willing to be the last director of national intelligence if it was determined that ODNI was unnecessary, the official said.

Gabbard announced she would leave the post on May 22, citing family obligations following her husband’s diagnosis of a rare form of bone cancer. Pulte will assume the role in an acting capacity on June 30.

Trump wants incoming Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte to slash the size of the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy further, according to the WSJ report. Trump told the outlet he has privately instructed Pulte that ODNI “unnecessary and/or too big.”

Trump surprised many advisers earlier this week by selecting the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) director as intelligence chief.

The president said he hopes Pulte can begin making changes before a permanent intelligence director is confirmed.

“Frankly, it might be good for him to shake it up before people come,” Trump said, adding that Pulte can do “a lot of the hard work” before an appointee takes over.

Comparing the effort to Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s downsizing of the Department of Education, Trump said ODNI should be made “much smaller” and suggested it could “maybe even be terminated.”

Last year, Gabbard’s team audited the ODNI and unearthed a culture beset by mission creep, bloated bureaucracy and weaponized intelligence. The housecleaning culminated in a slimmed down “ODNI 2.0” by August 2025. Some officials were terminated and other officials detailed to ODNI returned to their home agencies. Three centers were shuttered entirely.

Among the other tasks that remain on Gabbard’s agenda: Declassifying intelligence related to the origins of COVID-19 and Havana syndrome, officially known as anomalous health incidents.

ODNI was first created by the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act with the aim of resolving the lack of interagency cooperation that preceded the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Yet intelligence silos persisted under prior intelligence chiefs.

A massively influential 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment concluding that Russia aspired for Trump to win the election violated tradecraft standards. The raw intelligence, much of it spun or wholly manufactured, had been withheld from officials outside of a tiny cell overseen by former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan, declassified documents show.

Senior Politics Reporter Ashley Brasfield contributed to this report.

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