President Donald Trump stands with Tulsi Gabbard and her husband Abraham Williams after she was sworn in as the Director of National Intelligence in the Oval Office at the White House, Wednesday, February 12, 2025. Alex Brandon/AP
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced on Friday that she would resign, saying that her husband, Abraham, has been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. “At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle,” Gabbard wrote in her resignation letter to Trump.
Gabbard, who represented Hawaii as a Democrat in Congress from 2013 to 2021, has been, from the start, a polarizing and intensely conspiratorial figure and a curious choice for this role. She grew up in a spiritual movement in Hawaii called the Science of Identity Foundation, an offshoot of Hare Krishna that some critics and ex-members have dubbed a cult. (A Gabbard spokesperson has said that such criticism is unfounded and amounts to “Hinduphobia.”) Each time she’s been considered for a more substantial role, and during her 2020 presidential campaign, observers have debated how her upbringing has influenced her beliefs.
Over her career, Gabbard has shown a special soft spot for the world’s autocrats: in 2017, she secretly met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, going on to say that she was “skeptical” that Assad had carried out a chemical gas attack on his own people. “There’s responsibility that goes around,” she vaguely observed to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, in response to a question about whether she believed Assad, in Blitzer’s words, “bears any responsibility for the horrific deaths that have occurred in his own country.” Assad is believed to have carried out “widespread and systematic” gas attacks against the Syrian people, according to Human Rights Watch. Gabbard was also harshly critical of Ukraine preceding Russia’s invasion of the country, claiming that the invasion could have been avoided if NATO and the Biden Administration had acknowledged what she called Russia’s “legitimate security concerns.”
After she was appointed as DNI director, Gabbard quickly sought to curry favor with Trump, accusing the Obama administration of a “treasonous plot” against Donald Trump during the 2016 elections. But she fell out of favor with the president, and by April of this year, was reportedly not invited to strategy meetings on the Iran war.
Naturally, her departure spurred a raft of conspiracy theories, especially on the right, with observers unable to agree on who was responsible for her sudden exit. In their estimation, some likely candidates included the CIA, the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, and the broader, nonspecific Deep State. As the MAGA universe becomes increasingly fractured over issues like the Iran war, Gabbard’s departure not only opens up another position for Trump to fill with a loyalist, but also holds up a mirror to show just how distorted and contradictory their once lockstep views have become.
Reuters reports that Gabbard was “forced out” by the White House, a claim a spokesperson there denied. Nonetheless, for months, rumors have swirled that she would be dismissed over differences with Trump over the Iran war. One of the most outspoken has been Laura Loomer, the far-right provocateur and close confidante of President Trump’s, who has claimed since earlier this year that Gabbard would be gone before the midterms, a prediction that proved to be correct.
Gabbard’s departure follows a slew of others. She’s the fourth woman to leave the Trump administration in recent months, following Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Just days ago, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, a former CIA undercover agent, also left two of her jobs, as a deputy to Gabbard and as an associate director at the Office of Management and Budget. Joe Kent, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, also recently resigned, citing his opposition to the Iran war.
“We are witnessing the systematic purging of conscience from government.”
The moment Gabbard’s resignation letter hit the internet, the speculation began. “The great Tulsi Gabbard, let’s be blunt, got fired,” former Trump advisor Steve Bannon declared on his show The War Room, swiftly conflating all the conspiracy theories into one. “This is Ratcliffe and the CIA and the Mossad. This is a hostile takeover of the DNI [Director of National Intelligence].” (“Ratcliffe” refers to John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA.)
Other people in the MAGAverse also tied Gabbard’s departure to the false news of an alleged raid on her office by the CIA. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) previously claimed in mid-May that the CIA had raided Gabbard’s office, taking documents related to the JFK assassination and MKUltra, the CIA’s infamous mid-century mind control research program. Gabbard’s office quickly denied that such a raid had taken place, and the story was never corroborated at the time. But as soon as Gabbard announced her resignation, self-styled MAGA journalists and influencers quickly referred to it.
“So Tulsi Gabbard, who had her office raided just before she was set to disclose classified documents on JFK and MK Ultra last week, will now be stepping down to take care of ‘family matters,’” tweeted Rebekah Worsham, a conservative online political commentator who calls herself “The Patriotic Blonde,” adding, “Shocking.”
Meanwhile, Patrick Webb, the founder of a fake news website called Leading Report that often shares COVID and other conspiracy theories, echoed the idea. He baselessly claimed that the CIA had been “illegally spying” on Gabbard over her investigations “into the alleged COVID-19 cover-up, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, and UAPs” (unidentified aerial phenomena).
Other observers weighed in with even more sweeping concerns. “We are witnessing the systematic purging of conscience from government,” tweeted MAHA influencer, Lauren Lee. “Charlie Kirk, MTG, Massie, Joe Kent, Tulsi Gabbard. Anyone who opposes the Iran war is getting eliminated or resigning for ‘family reasons.’ A very, very bad sign about what they’re planning next.”
It’s a fitting end to her tenure, as The Atlantic points out, given that she spent much of her brief time in office spinning conspiracy theories and taking pugnacious stances that seemed designed to win Trump’s attention and approval. She claimed that former US officials had tried to wage a “yearslong coup” on Trump and accused them, baldly, of “treason.” She also released a highly classified document that shed light on Russian interference in the 2016 election over objections from other intelligence agencies.
In the end, none of this was enough to impress Trump, or detract from what he saw as her ultimate disloyalty: saying that Iran had not rebuilt its nuclear program. (In one hearing, she refused to say whether Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat to the United States, saying that assessment was up to the president, which it is not.) Axios reported that Trump planned to fire her last month before former Trump campaign director and confidante Roger Stone persuaded him not to.
“Fortunately, I acted in time,” Stone tweeted, accusing Laura Loomer, with whom he’s been bitterly feuding, of orchestrating the situation. And while the tempting target of Gabbard may now be gone, the backbiting, feuding, and conspiracy theories will clearly find new targets soon.
