Gabbard resigned as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence on Friday, citing the need to be by her husband’s side as he battles cancer, according to a letter she posted on social media. She said she told Trump she would leave the post overseeing the coordination of 18 intelligence agencies on June 30. Trump, in a separate social media post, said Gabbard had “done an incredible job” and that Aaron Lukas would serve as acting director of national intelligence.
Gabbard’s letter said she recently learned her husband had been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, and that he “faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months.” In the letter, she wrote that “At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle,” and it was earlier reported by Fox News, according to the Associated Press.
Trump’s post did not dispute Gabbard’s explanation, but it underscored the transition at the top of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Trump said her principal deputy, Aaron Lukas, will take over as acting director, the AP reported.
The resignation adds to a run of Cabinet departures during Trump’s second term. AP reported that Gabbard is the fourth Cabinet member to leave the administration, and that all four were women. The other departures cited by AP include Kristi Noem, who was ousted from Homeland Security in late March, Pam Bondi, who departed in response to frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who resigned in April after misconduct investigations.
AP also described a political and policy backdrop to Gabbard’s time in the role, including tensions that appeared to grow as Trump’s administration moved into conflicts overseas. The report said that while Gabbard has long been known for opposing foreign wars, the relationship seemed to reach an awkward point during U.S. actions toward Iran. It cited the administration’s decision to strike Iran, as well as earlier internal division linked to the conflict, including Joe Kent’s resignation as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in March.
During her tenure, AP reported that Gabbard faced questions from lawmakers about what information the White House had warned about in the run-up to the Iran conflict and about potential fallout. AP said she repeatedly avoided endorsing the Iran war and directed comments back to decisions by Trump rather than to the ODNI leadership. In one quoted statement from the AP report, Gabbard said: “It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat.”
The resignation also came with questions about how quickly intelligence leadership would stabilize under Lukas’s acting role. AP described Lukas as Gabbard’s successor in an acting capacity and said he had served as an intelligence aide to the acting director of national intelligence, Ric Grenell, in 2020 during Trump’s first term. The AP report also said Lukas previously worked as a policy analyst at the Cato Institute and later served at the National Security Council as deputy senior director for Europe and Russia.
AP further described Gabbard’s broader profile as unusual for the intelligence job when Trump tapped her to lead ODNI. The report said her appointment came despite her having no direct intelligence experience, and that she was known both as a military veteran and for opposing U.S. involvement in foreign military conflicts. It said Gabbard later became an independent after leaving the Democratic Party, campaigned for several high-profile Republicans, and contributed to Fox News before endorsing Trump.
The AP report also said Gabbard previously testified that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons before Trump’s Iran strikes, and that Trump later publicly said she was wrong about that assessment. AP described the development as one driver of friction between Gabbard and the president early in his second term and said her departure came amid broader turbulence within the administration’s senior ranks.
Gabbard, the AP report said, ran for president in 2020 on a progressive platform and dropped out before endorsing Joe Biden. It also said she was the first Hindu member of the Hawaii House of Representatives and the first American Samoan elected to Congress. The AP report described her background and congressional career as including criticism of her own party’s leadership and support for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid.