2026-05-22T17:19:07.380Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/22/politics/tulsi-gabbard-resigns
国家情报总监图尔西·加巴德于周五宣布，她将于6月底辞职，原因是其丈夫被诊断出癌症。
“很遗憾，我必须提交辞呈，自2026年6月30日起生效，”她在写给唐纳德·特朗普总统的信中写道。“我的丈夫亚伯拉罕最近被诊断出患上一种极为罕见的骨癌。未来数周乃至数月，他都将面临重重挑战。此时此刻，我必须退出公职，陪伴在他身边，全力支持他度过这场难关。”
特朗普迅速对加巴德表示赞扬，并宣布国家情报总监办公室副主任亚伦·卢卡斯将担任代理国家情报总监。
“她亲爱的丈夫亚伯拉罕近期被诊断出罕见骨癌，她理应陪伴在丈夫身边，与他并肩作战，助他恢复健康，”特朗普在Truth Social上写道，并补充称加巴德“工作表现出色，我们会想念她”。
据一位资深政府官员透露，过去几周白宫官员曾听闻加巴德计划离职的传闻，但直到两周前，她仍否认会离开政府团队。据一位知情消息人士透露，加巴德于周五在椭圆形办公室会见特朗普并递交了辞职信。
在辞职信中，加巴德表示她不能让丈夫独自面对这一诊断结果。
“亚伯拉罕是我们十一年婚姻中的坚实后盾——在我前往东非执行联合特种作战任务、多次参与政治竞选，以及如今担任这一职务期间，他始终坚定地站在我身边。他的力量与爱支撑我走过每一次挑战。如今我良心难安，无法在继续担任这份耗费大量时间与精力的职务之际，让他独自面对这场战斗，”她写道。
加巴德的任期内始终充斥着自相矛盾、令人困惑的表态，尤其是在美伊战争问题上，这有时令她在白宫失宠。
她将成为最新一位离职的内阁成员，此前特朗普已解雇国土安全部长克里斯蒂·诺姆和司法部长帕姆·邦迪，劳工部长洛里·查韦斯-德雷默也已离职。
“尽管我们在国家情报总监办公室取得了显著进展——推动了前所未有的透明度，恢复了情报界的诚信——但我深知仍有重要工作有待完成，”加巴德在给总统的信中写道，并表示她将致力于确保过渡顺利进行。
加巴德关于伊朗的表态有时与白宫的说法和理由相悖，这一情况早在今年2月底战争爆发前数月就已出现。
2025年6月，在美国袭击伊朗核设施数日前，美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）曾报道称，据一位资深白宫顾问透露，白宫内部多名人士对加巴德的表现感到失望，特朗普认为她在以伊冲突问题上“偏离口径”。
当月早些时候，加巴德发布视频警告称世界“比以往任何时候都更接近核毁灭边缘”，并指责“政治精英和好战分子”煽动“核大国之间的恐惧与紧张局势”，特朗普的不满达到顶峰。
据当时一位消息人士告诉CNN，特朗普认为该视频是对他考虑允许以色列袭击伊朗的隐晦批评，白宫内部许多人也一致认为加巴德出言失当。
当月晚些时候，特朗普公开斥责其情报总监在国会作证时称伊朗并未积极追求核武器，他对记者表示：“我不在乎她怎么说。我认为他们当时非常接近拥有核武器。”同一天，特朗普批准了对伊朗核设施的美军打击行动，即“午夜铁锤行动”。
今年2月美以对伊朗战争爆发后，特朗普和政府官员试图为这场冲突辩护，称伊朗在2025年6月的袭击后正在重建其核计划，构成迫在眉睫的威胁。
然而，在不到一个月后提交给参议院情报委员会的准备证词中，加巴德表示：“作为‘午夜铁锤行动’（6月实施）的结果，伊朗的核浓缩项目已被摧毁。自那以后，他们没有任何努力重建浓缩能力。”
她并未在国会听证会上宣读这部分准备好的证词。当被问及原因时，她表示是因为“时间所剩无几”，但当被问及这是否仍是情报界的评估时，她回答“是的”。
在那场听证会上，加巴德还拒绝透露伊朗是否构成迫在眉睫的威胁，而是表示：“唯一能够决定何为威胁、何为非威胁的人是总统。”
“确定何为迫在眉睫的威胁并非情报界的职责，”她补充道。
加巴德的高级反恐官员乔·肯特在战争爆发不到三周后辞职，他称自己对这场冲突心存疑虑，并表示伊朗并未构成“迫在眉睫的威胁”。
加巴德与肯特划清界限，在众议院听证会上被问及是否认为肯特的言论令人担忧时，加巴德回答：“是的。”
加巴德还参与了一项关于2020年选举所谓选民欺诈的调查，这似乎让她有机会通过支持特朗普关于2020年选举被窃取的虚假言论来博取特朗普的好感。
今年1月，联邦调查局特工在亚特兰大附近的富尔顿县选举办公室执行搜查令后，加巴德采取了非同寻常的步骤前往现场。此次搜查与司法部获取投票数据、搜查该县所谓选举欺诈行为有关。
加巴德的此次到访值得关注，因为国家情报总监通常负责协调美国情报机构及其海外行动，而非国内事务或执法工作。
她随后在写给参众两院情报委员会高级民主党议员的信中表示，她出现在搜查现场“是总统的要求”。但这很快引发了混乱，因为政府对派遣她的人给出了相互矛盾的解释。
几位前高级情报官员和选举法专家告诉CNN，加巴德对联邦调查局的搜查没有法律管辖权，她在富尔顿县的露面有可能削弱水门事件后确立的外国和国内情报活动之间的关键界限。
作为加巴德寻找所谓选民欺诈证据的一部分，国家情报总监办公室还从波多黎各获取了投票机，并调查其安全漏洞。但该办公室在获取投票机器后发布的声明中指出的问题，选举安全专家早已知晓并已修复。
作为陆军预备役成员的加巴德曾是民主党籍众议员，代表夏威夷州第二国会选区，成为国会中首位美属萨摩亚裔和印度教徒议员，创下历史纪录。2020年，她以民主党人身份参选总统，自称是伊拉克战争老兵，奉行反干预主义外交政策，两年后退出民主党。
她随后于2024年 endorsing特朗普，与他一同竞选，并帮助他准备与时任副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯的辩论。加巴德在大选前加入共和党，并在特朗普获胜后加入他的过渡团队。特朗普任命她担任国家情报总监，这一最高职位负责监督构成情报界的18个机构。
本文已更新补充更多细节。
CNN的凯蒂·博·利利斯、杰里米·赫布、肖恩·林格斯和扎卡里·科恩为本报道贡献了内容。
Tulsi Gabbard is resigning as director of national intelligence
2026-05-22T17:19:07.380Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/22/politics/tulsi-gabbard-resigns
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Friday that she’s resigning at the end of June, citing her husband’s diagnosis with cancer.
“Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026,” she wrote in a letter President Donald Trump. “My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer. He faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months. At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle.”
Trump quickly praised Gabbard and announced Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Aaron Lukas will serve as acting director of national intelligence.
“Her wonderful husband, Abraham, has been recently diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, and she, rightfully, wants to be with him, bringing him back to good health as they currently fight a tough battle together,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that Gabbard has done “an incredible job, and we will miss her.”
Over the last few weeks, White House officials heard rumors that Gabbard was planning to leave. But as of two weeks ago, she was denying she was leaving the administration, a senior administration official said. On Friday, Gabbard met with Trump in the Oval Office to deliver the letter, according to a source familiar.
In her letter, Gabbard said she couldn’t let her husband face the diagnosis on his own.
“Abraham has been my rock throughout our eleven years of marriage —standing steadfast through my deployment to East Africa on a Joint Special Operations mission, multiple political campaigns, and now my service in this role. His strength and love have sustained me through every challenge. I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position,” she wrote.
Gabbard’s tenure has been riddled with contradictory and confusing messaging, particularly on the US war with Iran, which at times put her out of favor with the White House.
She will be the latest Cabinet member to depart, following Trump’s ousters of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi and the departure of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
“While we have made significant progress at the ODNI — advancing unprecedented transparency and restoring integrity to the intelligence community — I recognize there is still important work to be done,” Gabbard wrote in her letter to the president, noting that she’s committed to facilitating a smooth transition.
Gabbard’s messaging on Iran had at times been at odds with the White House’s claims and justifications, beginning months before the war started in late February.
CNN reported in June 2025 — days before the US struck Iranian nuclear facilities — that multiple people inside the West Wing had grown disillusioned with Gabbard’s performance, with Trump seeing her as “off message” regarding the Israel-Iran conflict, according to one senior White House adviser.
Trump’s annoyance peaked earlier that month when Gabbard posted a video warning that the world was “closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before” and blaming “political elite and warmongers” for stoking “fear and tensions between nuclear powers.”
Trump viewed the video as a thinly veiled criticism of his consideration to allow Israel to strike Iran, and many inside the White House agreed Gabbard was speaking out of turn, a source told CNN at the time.
Later that month, Trump publicly rebuked his intel chief’s testimony to Congress that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, telling reporters, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having it.” The same day, Trump greenlit US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, known as Operation Midnight Hammer.
After the US-Israeli war against Iran began in February of this year, Trump and administration officials attempted to justify the conflict by claiming Iran was rebuilding its nuclear program after those June 2025 strikes and posed an imminent threat.
However, in her prepared remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee less than a month later, Gabbard said, “As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer (in June), Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability.”
She did not read that portion of her prepared remarks during the congressional hearing. Pressed on why, she said it was because her “time was running long” but said, “yes” when asked whether that remained the assessment of the intelligence community.
During that hearing, Gabbard also refused to say whether Iran posed an imminent threat, instead saying, “The only person who can determine what is and is not a threat is the president.”
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” she added.
Gabbard’s top counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, resigned less than three weeks into the war, citing misgivings about the conflict and saying Iran did not pose an “imminent threat.”
Gabbard distanced herself from Kent, and when asked during a House hearing whether she found his comments concerning, Gabbard said, “Yes.”
Gabbard also took on a role investigating alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election, which appeared to give her an opportunity to curry favor with Trump by supporting his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
In January of this year, Gabbard took the extraordinary step of going to the scene after FBI agents executed a search warrant at the Fulton County elections office, near Atlanta. The search was related to an effort by the Justice Department to seize voting data and search for alleged fraud in the county.
Gabbard’s presence was noteworthy since the director of national intelligence is generally involved in coordinating US intelligence agencies and their efforts overseas, not domestic matters or law enforcement.
She went on to tell top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence committees in a letter that her presence during the search “was requested by the President.” But that quickly became a point of confusion as the administration offered conflicting explanations about who sent her.
Several former senior intelligence officials and election law experts told CNN that Gabbard had no legal authority over the FBI search and that her presence in Fulton County risked eroding a crucial line between foreign and domestic intelligence activities instituted after Watergate.
As part of Gabbard’s quest for evidence of alleged voter fraud, the ODNI also obtained voting machines from Puerto Rico and probed them for security vulnerabilities. But the statement that ODNI put out after acquiring the voting machines flagged issues that have been long known to, and remediated by, election security experts.
Gabbard, who serves in the Army Reserves, is a former Democratic congresswoman who represented Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District, making history as the first American Samoan and practicing Hindu in Congress. She ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, touting herself as an Iraq War veteran with an anti-interventionist foreign policy, before leaving the party two years later.
She went on to endorse Trump in 2024, campaigning with him and helping him prepare for his debate with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Gabbard joined the GOP before the election and served on Trump’s transition team after he won. Trump tapped her to serve as director of national intelligence, the top post overseeing the 18 agencies that make up the intelligence community.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis, Jeremy Herb, Sean Lyngaas and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.