WASHINGTON, May 22 (Reuters) - Tulsi Gabbard said on Friday she is resigning from her job as President Donald Trump's director of national intelligence, saying her husband had been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and that she was stepping away from her role to help him.
Gabbard advised Trump of her intention to step down during an Oval Office meeting on Friday, Fox News Digital reported earlier. The resignation is effective June 30, it said.
A source familiar with the matter said that Gabbard had been forced out by the White House. Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said on X that Gabbard was stepping aside in light of her husband's diagnosis.
"Tulsi Gabbard is an America First patriot who has served this country faithfully and extremely well over the last 16 months," Ingle said.
In her resignation letter posted on X, Gabbard told Trump she was "deeply grateful for the trust you placed in me and for the opportunity to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the last year and a half."
She cited her husband Abraham Williams' recent diagnosis with a rare form of bone cancer.
"I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming post," she said.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Aaron Lukas, would serve as acting director of national intelligence.
He said Gabbard had done "a great job" but with her husband diagnosed with bone cancer, "she, rightfully, wants to be with him, bringing him back to good health as they currently fight a tough battle together."
Trump has hinted in the past at differences with Gabbard on their approach to Iran, saying in March that she was "softer" than him on curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
In April, several sources told Reuters that Gabbard could lose her role in a broader cabinet shakeup.
A senior White House official said then that Trump had expressed displeasure with Gabbard in recent months. Another source with direct knowledge of the matter said the president had asked allies for their thoughts on potential replacements for his intelligence chief.
'PUSHED OUT'
Signs of the White House displeasure have included Gabbard’s absence from deliberations between Trump and his top national security advisers on the U.S. military operation that deposed former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the Iran war and Cuba.
"She was pushed out by the White House," a source familiar with Gabbard's departure told Reuters. "The White House has been unhappy with her for quite some time."
The person said among other reasons for the displeasure with Gabbard were the activities of her taskforce known as the Director’s Initiatives Group. Among other activities, it has worked to declassify documents related to the death of former President John F. Kennedy, investigate the security of election machines, and probe the origins of COVID-19.
Another source of friction, the person said, was Gabbard’s revocation last August of the security clearances of 37 current and former U.S. officials that exposed the name of an intelligence officer serving undercover overseas.
Gabbard led several initiatives aimed at rooting out politicization from the intelligence community and approved the stripping of security clearances from former intelligence officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan.
Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters after a Friday event in Manassas, Virginia, that Gabbard's job itself had become too politicized.
"This position now more than ever needs to be an independent, experienced intelligence professional," Warner said.
The next leader should understand the "Director of National Intelligence should be focusing on foreign intelligence and not involving himself or herself in domestic election incidents," he said.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil, Doina Chiacu, Erin Blanco, David Brunnstrom and David Shepardson; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Don Durfee and Deepa Babington)
