Key facts
- The CIA stopped co-authoring National Intelligence Council assessments, reducing reports that consolidate the intelligence community's views, two US officials said.
- The National Intelligence Council has slowed production of its assessments and none have focused on the war in Iran, five current and former officials said.
- An ODNI official said the group has maintained assessment levels close to historic trendlines.
- White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles intervened several times to defuse CIA and ODNI tensions, three former officials said.
- The FBI late last year paused some intelligence sharing with the National Counterterrorism Center for several weeks, two former officials said.
- The White House and the FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
US intelligence sharing on Iran and other global threats with Congress and across the federal government slowed and, in some cases, temporarily stopped during President Donald Trump's second term, according to eight current and former officials and people briefed on the matter. The disruption has not been previously reported. The slowdown comes as the administration weighs whether to resume strikes on Iran after the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, 2026.
The problems emerged during Tulsi Gabbard's tenure as director of national intelligence, amid deep tensions between her office and the CIA, according to two US officials familiar with the matter. Those tensions have subsided since her resignation in June, but problems stemming from the clash persist, the officials said. The CIA has stopped co-authoring assessments with the National Intelligence Council, an analytical group within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, reducing the number of reports that pull together the intelligence community's views for decision-makers on subjects including Iran.
Lawmakers and their staffs briefly stopped receiving intelligence reports from Gabbard's office in the days after the US military intervention in Iran in June 2025 and again after the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January 2026, according to two people familiar with the matter. Gabbard's team had accused lawmakers of leaking to the press. Her office also stopped briefing Congress on election threats in 2025, according to two people familiar with the matter and a former US official.
CIA spokesperson Liz Lyons said the CIA "participates fully" in the process of providing intelligence assessments through the Presidential Daily Brief, which is led by ODNI, and through the NIC. An ODNI official said the group has maintained assessment levels close to "historic trendlines." A US official said Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, who took the post in August, has proven a good steward of the intelligence community, and officials said he has resumed congressional briefings on election threats. The White House and the FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
Former officials and outside experts said the disruptions risk leaving policymakers with an incomplete picture of threats facing the country, echoing intelligence failures exposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks. Some former officials are working on a bipartisan basis at Stanford University's Hoover Institution to draw up plans to rebuild the intelligence community in the next administration, four former US officials said.
"All of these things are adding up in a really complex world where policymakers need to have a more sophisticated, nuanced, and integrated view of the world, and they are getting less," said Beth Sanner, a former deputy director of national intelligence during Trump's first term. Julia Curlee, a former CIA analyst who said she was fired from the Trump National Security Council last year for being transgender, said: "Analysts still do the work, but this White House has made them irrelevant because the president treats unwelcome information as disloyalty."
Some analysts who remain at the intelligence agencies are now careful not to write assessments at odds with the White House's views for fear of political retaliation, two former officials and a current US official said. The officials did not say which topics the analysts were avoiding. The infighting between the agencies was triggered when Gabbard's office revoked the security clearances of current and former intelligence officials a year ago, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had to intervene several times to defuse tensions, three former officials said.
In another clash, the FBI late last year stopped sharing some intelligence with the National Counterterrorism Center for several weeks after the center's then-head, Joe Kent, and his staff tried to investigate the shooting of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, two former officials said. FBI leaders told Kent they believed NCTC was overstepping its authority.