Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, stayed loyal to Donald Trump until the end – and nurtured the president’s grievances against his political enemies. Last year, she accused Barack Obama and several of his top national security officials of leading a “treasonous conspiracy” to highlight Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In January, Gabbard showed up at the scene of an FBI raid in Georgia where officials sought ballots from the 2020 election, even though her role is mainly focused on foreign intelligence.

On Friday, Gabbard submitted her resignation to Trump, saying she would leave her post on 30 June, so she could support her husband after he was recently diagnosed with cancer. News reports quickly emerged that the White House had forced Gabbard to resign. The Guardian reported last month that Trump had privately asked cabinet members whether he should replace her from the post that oversees 18 US intelligence agencies.

Despite her loyalty and attempts to cozy up to Trump by promoting his conspiracy theories about past elections, Gabbard was undone by her resistance to US foreign interventions and regime-change wars. She repeatedly drew Trump’s anger for her handling of intelligence around Iran’s nuclear program and capabilities. Last June, when Trump supported Israel’s surprise attack against Tehran before Washington briefly joined the 12-day war by bombing several of Iran’s nuclear facilities, he pressured Gabbard to change her assessment of how close Iran was to producing a bomb.

In January, as Trump’s national security team finalized its plan to depose and abduct Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and bring him to New York to stand trial, Gabbard was excluded from the planning, reportedly because of her past opposition to US operations aimed at regime change. Around that time, Gabbard posted photos on Instagram of herself practicing yoga on a beach in Hawaii, where she had lived........

© The Guardian