US intel chief slashes payroll to root out 'deep state actors'

US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard said Wednesday she will make heavy cuts to her office, which she declared has "fallen short" of fulfilling its mandate and is "rife with abuse of power."

Gabbard announced she will reduce the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) by over 40 percent by the end of fiscal year 2025, estimated to save $700 million.

"Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence and politicized weaponization of intelligence," Gabbard said in a news release.

In a series of social media posts, Gabbard added that she is "cutting bloated bureaucracy, rooting out deep state actors, and restoring mission focus."

A four-page fact sheet posted to her department's website describes the plan for "ODNI 2.0," which involves reducing her office's efforts to monitor biosecurity, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, cyber intelligence threats and other areas.

In explaining cuts to the Strategic Futures Group, the office's intelligence forecasting unit, Gabbard's team said they were "found to violate professional analytic tradecraft standards in an effort to propogate a political agenda that ran counter to all of the current president's national security priorities."

The cuts were, at times, explained with accusations against previous Democrat-led administrations.

Cuts to the Foreign Malign Influence Center -- established to combat foreign threats to democracy and US interests -- were conducted because it was "used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition," the fact sheet alleged, in reference to President Donald Trump's predecessor Joe Biden.

The fact sheet also touted previous cuts, saying since "Gabbard's first day, ODNI has already reduced its size by nearly 30%, with more than 500 staffers now off the books."

In July, Gabbard accused former president Barack Obama of heading a "treasonous conspiracy" to allege Russia interfered with American elections to help Trump.

But Gabbard's findings run up against four separate criminal, counterintelligence and watchdog probes between 2019 and 2023 -- each of them concluding that Russia did interfere and helped Trump in various ways.

Critics have accused Gabbard, 43, of being close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The purge extends beyond slashing the agency's current payroll.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Gabbard revoked the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials -- many of whom worked on Russia analysis or foreign threats to US elections -- at the president's direction.

President Donald Trump took office on the promise of reducing the size of the federal government, and has since slashed US foreign aid contributions, the Department of Education -- which required the US Supreme Court's approval -- and other agencies.