Staff at the office of the top U.S. spy have been told by managers to expect extensive cuts in the coming months following comments by President Donald Trump that he wants the new interim director to shrink the agency’s ranks.

Background

Trump announced last week that he would appoint federal housing regulator Bill Pulte as interim Director of National Intelligence when Tulsi Gabbard leaves her post later this month, a decision that has drawn sharp criticism from Democrats and some Republicans given Pulte’s lack of intelligence experience.

Trump said he thought Pulte should make further staff cuts at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an agency created after the attacks of September 11, 2001, to coordinate the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies and which some Republicans say has become bloated.

Gabbard has already cut the workforce of the agency by about 40% since taking up the position last year. It is unclear how many staff remain at the agency, which had more than 1,000 people previously.

Impact

Following Gabbard’s restructuring last year, some employees found their jobs eliminated, though they were not fired and instead labeled as “excess to need.” Some of those employees have since left the agency. Others were told by agency management in recent weeks that they would likely not be placed in another permanent position and that they should seek employment elsewhere.

An intelligence official told Reuters that all those employees had already “moved on to other opportunities.”

Pulte’s appointment as interim Director of National Intelligence comes amid a turf war between ODNI and the CIA – a rift that originated with Gabbard’s formation of a task force with the stated goal of “rooting out” politicization from the intelligence community.

Further cuts at ODNI would likely reduce the number of staff assisting the National Intelligence Council, the premier analytical group inside the intelligence community.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.