Tulsi Gabbard guts nearly half of her agency

Todayville

Published

2 months ago

4 minute read

Quick Hit:

DNI Tulsi Gabbard is slashing her agency (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) by nearly 50% under “ODNI 2.0,” closing redundant centers, saving $700 million, and vowing to end the weaponization of intelligence.

Key Details:

The downsizing, which began Wednesday, shuts down the Foreign Malign Influence Center, the National Intelligence University, the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center, and other entities. Officials said many of these offices overlapped with existing agencies and had been “turned against the American people.”
Staff reductions since Gabbard took charge have reached nearly half of ODNI’s original workforce of 2,000. Some employees will be dismissed, while others will return to their “home agencies” like the CIA.
The reforms come with Trump’s approval. Gabbard briefed the president in the Oval Office earlier this month, and officials say “all of [Trump’s] priorities are reflected” in ODNI 2.0.

Diving Deeper:

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is reshaping the ODNI in one of the most dramatic overhauls in its short history. Beginning Wednesday afternoon, a wave of cuts closed down entire divisions, including the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), a controversial office that coordinated with Big Tech to monitor “election threats.” ODNI officials told Breitbart News that FMIC and its Election Threats Executive had played a role in the suppression of the New York Post’s 2020 Hunter Biden laptop story, and that its mission was already covered by other intelligence bodies. “The center was turned against the American people,” one adviser said, adding that the Biden administration used it “against conservatives and gun owners.”

Since taking office, Gabbard has already reduced ODNI staff by 30 percent. With this new round of closures, nearly half of the original 2,000 positions have been eliminated. Officials estimate the changes will save taxpayers $700 million. While some employees are losing their jobs outright, others are being reassigned to their original agencies. At the same time, Gabbard has worked with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to fold the National Intelligence University into the Department of Defense’s National Defense University, telling students in a joint letter this shift “aligns with President Trump’s focus on increasing efficiencies across government.”

The ODNI was created after the September 11th attacks, but critics long argued the office duplicated efforts already performed elsewhere. During her Senate confirmation, Gabbard was asked if ODNI should be shut down entirely. Lawmakers ultimately allowed her to reform the agency instead, and she is now pursuing that mandate aggressively. “Departments and agencies left to their own devices will create things like the Russia hoax,” one official said, referencing Gabbard’s declassification of documents showing the Obama administration’s role in pushing the false Trump-Russia collusion narrative.

Gabbard’s reforms extend beyond eliminating redundant centers. She has stripped security clearances from intelligence officials accused of politicizing their work, declassified files exposing past abuses, and vowed to prioritize next-generation technology like AI and quantum computing. Her letter to staff acknowledged the disruption to those being reassigned but urged them to embrace the vision of ODNI 2.0. “Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks, and politicized weaponization of intelligence,” she wrote. “Ending the weaponization of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people’s trust.”

(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Related Topics:MXMNews OfficeOfTheDirectorOfNationalIntelligence TulsiGabbardHacksHerStaff

Up Next

Trump Brings Hard Times For The Climate Alarm Movement

Don't Miss

How Trump Can End Europe’s Reign Of Terror On American Oil And Gas

Todayville

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Labour disputes loom large over Canadian economy

Business / 1 hour ago

Daily Caller EXCLUSIVE: Chinese Gov’t-Tied Network Training Illegal Immigrants To Drive Big Rigs In US

Crime / 10 hours ago

Pierre Poilievre says Christians may be ‘number one’ target of hate violence in Canada

Business

Daily Caller EXCLUSIVE: Chinese Gov’t-Tied Network Training Illegal Immigrants To Drive Big Rigs In US

Published on October 6, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Philip Lenczycki

Chinese illegal immigrants are obtaining commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) and landing jobs in the U.S. trucking industry with support from a Chinese government-linked network, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.

The Chinese American Trucker Organization USA Inc. (CATOU) is a New York-based nonprofit trade organization registered as a 501(c)6 that has allegedly helped over 1,000 Chinese students obtain CDLs and has a 100% pass rate, according to its business filings, social media posts and website. Videos posted on social media by an individual who crossed the U.S. southern border illegally shows they were able to rapidly obtain California CDLs after taking courses taught by CATOU instructors.

The public safety concern presented by truckers with unknown criminal backgrounds and driving records is compounded by CATOU’s board chairwoman, Geng Hang, who has held leadership roles within organizations operating as arms of the Chinese government and a Chinese Communist Part (CCP) influence and intelligence agency called the United Front Work Department (UFWD), according to DCNF translations of announcements from those entities.

“No way American citizens voted for the California gateway for illegal migrants to operate heavy vehicles throughout America. That of itself is a public safety and homeland security concern,” Steve Yates, senior research fellow for China and national security policy at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF.

“Having a large CCP-tied network further train, certify, and place ‘their’ illegal migrants throughout vital surface shipping routes — urban, rural, and interstate — elevates national security risks,” Yates said. “At a time of high tension, crisis, or conflict with the CCP, what confidence could we have this network could not and would not be used against us?”

CATOU and Geng did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

[Image created by DCNF with pictures from ASGCC and Qiaobao]

‘Not One Has Failed So Far’

Chinese social media posts show CATOU instructors teaching students about the trucking industry inside the New York office of Red Apple Employment Agency, which is also led by Geng, and helps Chinese nationals both with and “without proper status” find work for “$80 to $100 per job placement,” The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2024.

While the DCNF found no New York business filing for Red Apple Employment Agency, the agency’s office displays signs featuring both CATOU and its name, videos posted by CATOU on Chinese social media reveal.

CATOU members have also taught truck driving courses at 7 CDL Driving School in Manassas, Virginia, videos within posts from the X account @tiange999 show. The driving school shares its address with a trucking company that Geng owns called Red Apple Enterprises Inc., according to business filings and 7 CDL’s website.

“The driving school where I’m studying has trained over 1,000 Chinese students and not one has failed so far,” @tiange999 wrote in a September 2024 X post featuring videos filmed with a CATOU instructor at 7 CDL Driving School, according to a DCNF translation. “Experienced students can pass in just one week, while those with no driving experience pass in about a month.”

The @tiange999 account is operated by a Chinese national who traveled up from South America and Central America into North America before crossing the U.S. southern border in June 2023. The owner of the account has since referred to himself as someone who “walked the line,” which is a “euphemism for illegal migration out of China,” Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center For Border Security and Immigration, testified during a May 2024 hearing held by the House Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability.

Roughly 8.5 million illegal aliens were encountered at the U.S. southern border during the Biden administration, including over 182,000 Chinese nationals from fiscal years 2021-2024, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection told the DCNF.

The @tiange999 account also features videos detailing how he passed the CDL test at 7 CDL Driving School and ultimately obtained CDL qualification in less than two months after first announcing he’d received a California driver’s license in August 2024.

More recent posts show @tiange999 driving a coach bus with identification numbers revealing his employer to be NC Transfer Inc., which has branches in North Carolina and New York, according to business filings.

The Trump administration is ramping up scrutiny of the trucking industry following a deadly August 2025 crash in Florida involving an illegal immigrant truck driver with a California CDL, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The truck driver has been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and a preliminary Department of Transportation (DOT) investigation allegedly discovered he “did not speak English.”

“I would say just the drivers alone is not scary enough on the national security front,” Justin Martin, a 15-year trucking industry veteran, told the DCNF.

“These guys are already here, and they’re already operating, and it doesn’t matter how many of these trucks you catch or how many of these drivers you shut down, they’re just going to get hired somewhere else until they start going after the companies and the owners of these companies and shutting them down and preventing them from coming back,” Martin said.

[Image created by the DCNF with screenshots of @tiange999’s X account]

‘Foreign Actors’

CATOU’s chairwoman, Geng, has served as an official in multiple organizations advancing Chinese influence and intelligence efforts in the U.S., including one entity that has held meetings in the New York office shared by CATOU and Red Apple Employment Agency, according to DCNF translations of Chinese media reports, social media posts, and the organizations’ announcements.

Among other Chinese government-tied leadership positions, the website of a New York nonprofit called the American Shaanxi General Chamber of Commerce (ASGCC) identifies Geng as its deputy chairwoman, according to a DCNF translation. ASGCC operates as a branch of the Shaanxi provincial Department of Commerce as well as a “sister association” of a UFWD arm called the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA), according to DCNF translations of ASGCC and COFA announcements.

ASGCC has repeatedly met with Chinese government officials, including in June 2009, when the nonprofit welcomed a delegation from the Shaanxi government and the UFWD‘s Chinese People’s Association For Friendship With Foreign Countries to discuss U.S. investment in China, according to DCNF translations of ASGCC announcements. Geng presented the delegation’s head with flowers at the airport, and she and other ASGCC members later serenaded the officials with songs like “Nanniwan,” which commemorates the CCP and Chinese military, according to Chinese state media.

Photos accompanying a January 2015 social media post made by ASGCC’s chairman also show ASGCC has held meetings within the shared New York office of CATOU and Red Apple Employment Agency.

“We are slowly giving over our entire truck industry to foreign actors,” Gord Magill, a truck industry writer, told the DCNF.

“I think foreign actors are fully aware that America’s corporations engaging in wage arbitrage and wage suppression against their own people are presenting opportunities for them to extract and scrape value out of the U.S. and give them some kind of strategic advantage in knowing exactly how our transportation systems work, and they’re just leveraging it for their own ends at the cost of American jobs and American motorists’ safety,” Magill said.

ASGCC, Red Apple Employment Agency, 7 CDL Driving School, Red Apple Enterprises, @tiange999, NC Transfer Inc. and DOT did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

espionage

Starmer Faces Questions Over Suppressed China Spy Case, Echoing Trudeau’s Beijing Scandals

Published on October 6, 2025

Todayville

Sam Cooper

Alleged political meddling in a collapsed espionage case targeting Starmer’s China-critical opponents sparks crisis of confidence in Whitehall’s independence.

Keir Starmer’s government is undergoing a credibility crisis over national security, with the Prime Minister himself facing mounting questions about whether he wielded political influence to have Whitehall’s independent prosecution service abruptly drop a rare Official Secrets Act case alleging a China-directed political-intelligence network inside Parliament — one that reportedly targeted Starmer’s opponents critical of Beijing.

Two men — parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash and academic Christopher Berry — had been due to stand trial this autumn, accused of gathering sensitive political research from Westminster between late 2021 and February 2023, including on the China Research Group of Beijing-sceptic MPs, and funnelling it onward to a senior figure in the Chinese Communist Party.

“The government deliberately collapsed the trial of two people who spied on MPs for China. I’m one of the sanctioned MPs & we will get to the truth about who ordered this. I believe this goes all the way to the top,” Conservative MP Neil O’Brien wrote Sunday.

The geopolitical echoes of this case resonate far beyond Westminster. A similar pattern has unfolded in Canada, where Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government — also perceived as favouring trade and engagement with Beijing — was accused of turning a blind eye to intelligence warnings that China’s Ministry of State Security was gathering information on Conservative MPs critical of Beijing, including Michael Chong, who incurred China’s wrath by sponsoring a motion recognizing the CCP’s repression of Uyghurs as genocide.

Multiple outlets have reported that British intelligence believed the information gathered on Conservative MPs critical of China inside Whitehall was destined for Cai Qi, China’s fifth-ranking leader, a Politburo Standing Committee member and confidant of Xi Jinping. The Guardian’s reporting of Cai’s alleged role underscores the extraordinary level of authority to which information targeting British parliamentarians may have been directed. The China Research Group itself included high-profile MPs such as Iain Duncan Smith, Tom Tugendhat, and Neil O’Brien — all sanctioned by Beijing for their outspoken positions on Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and broader human-rights issues.

In Canada, a similar pattern emerged when Conservative MP Michael Chong was likewise sanctioned by China and later revealed as a target of Ministry of State Security intelligence-gathering. Justin Trudeau and his staff were accused of failing to alert Chong to Canadian intelligence reports forwarded to the Prime Minister’s senior officials, which detailed Beijing’s targeting of Chong and his family in Hong Kong.

The emerging evidence of parallels is striking: in both countries, during the same 2021 time period, legislators sanctioned and vilified by Beijing were simultaneously subjected to covert information-collection efforts — suggesting a coordinated strategy by the Chinese Communist Party to identify, monitor, and neutralise its most vocal democratic critics.

At the centre of the growing political storm in Whitehall is an allegation that echoes Justin Trudeau’s reported downplaying of threats against his Conservative opponents. In London, the claim is that Downing Street’s top security adviser, Jonathan Powell, decided the government would not permit China to be described in court as an “enemy” — language prosecutors believed was essential to meet the statute’s threshold. After that decision, the Crown Prosecution Service declared it could no longer proceed for “evidential reasons,” and the case collapsed. If accurate, the intervention would represent an extraordinary instance of political calculation colliding with the operational demands of counter-espionage.

With new reporting from Britain today, Starmer is coming under scrutiny for a potential motivation behind what would amount to improper meddling in an independent prosecution — driven, critics say, by Labour’s desire to sweeten relations with Beijing for economic reasons.

Downing Street’s official response to the dropped prosecution has only fuelled the political fire. The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said it was “extremely disappointing” that the CPS decision meant Cash and Berry would not face trial, insisting the decision was “made rightly independently of government.” That claim of independence, however, now looks increasingly hollow in light of Times and Telegraph reporting that the decisive instruction on the “enemy” wording originated from Starmer’s own national-security team.

The move — and the CPS’s refusal to explain why it could present no evidence — has triggered outrage across party lines. Former Conservative security minister Tom Tugendhat, joined by four other MPs, has written to Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson demanding a full account of the decision to drop the case and clarification of any communications between the CPS, No. 10, and the Cabinet Office.

The legal explanation for the collapse of this explosive case is technical: the wording of the 1911 Official Secrets Act, which criminalised acts “useful to an enemy.” Prosecutors reportedly determined that to meet the statutory threshold, China would need to be explicitly designated an enemy — a label the current government refused to authorise.

The National Security Act 2023, which replaced the century-old statute, eliminates that outdated “enemy” clause and creates broader offences for “foreign interference” and “assisting a foreign power.” But the new law came into force only in December 2023 and cannot be applied retrospectively to alleged conduct that occurred between 2021 and 2023, according to several legal experts.

In Canada’s Foreign Interference Inquiry, Trudeau faced questioning on his government’s lack of response to CSIS’s “Targeting Paper” — a high-level intelligence document that described how Beijing collected information to classify which Canadian MPs could help China and which could hurt it, in apparent efforts to guide Beijing’s election interference and political influence campaigns.

Trudeau and his senior aides claim he was never informed of the explosive report. Drafted in 2021 and circulated to a small number of public servants in 2023, the Targeting Paper “named names” and outlined how Chinese diplomats categorised Canadian parliamentarians into three groups: those friendly towards Beijing, those neutral or persuadable, and those deemed antagonistic due to their criticism of China’s human-rights record, particularly on issues like the Uyghurs and Hong Kong.

Echoing the allegations now confronting Starmer’s government, Trudeau’s national security adviser and senior bureaucrats reportedly refused to adopt Canadian intelligence’s view that Beijing’s targeting of MPs represented a serious national-security threat that could undermine Canada’s sovereignty, testimony from Ottawa’s inquiry suggested.

In the hearings, Trudeau’s former senior officials Jody Thomas and Janice Charette defended their decisions not to escalate two high-impact 2022 intelligence reports on Chinese interference — including the Targeting Paper — to the Prime Minister.