Tulsi Gabbard, the ex-Hawaii Democrat who found a place in Donald Trump’s cabinet as Director of National Intelligence, is stepping down from her post.The former congresswoman notified Trump of her intent to resign as of June 30 during a meeting on Friday. Writing on X, she said she was “deeply grateful for the trust President Trump placed in me and for the opportunity to lead ODNI for the last year and a half.”Her resignation letter cited her husband’s diagnosis with “an extremely rare form of bone cancer” as the reason for her decision. "Abraham has been my rock throughout our eleven years of marriage — standing steadfast through my deployment to East Africa on a Joint Special Operations mission, multiple political campaigns and now my service in this role,” she said. "His strength and love have sustained me through every challenge — I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position."She added that she was “fully committed to ensuring a smooth and thorough transition over the coming weeks Gabbard’s exit from Trump’s cabinet, which was first reported by Fox News, marks the end of a tumultuous year and a half for the former Democrat, who gained a place in Trump’s orbit during the 2024 election after bolting from her party after an ill-fated attempt at running for the Democratic presidential nomination four years earlier.During her time in Congress, she routinely drew criticism from foreign policy experts for expressing conspiratorial and often pro-Russian views, including during an infamous 2015 trip to Syria in which she parroted Russian propaganda by claiming it might have been ISIS — which did not possess an Air Force — that committed brutal airstrikes against civilians. Gabbard often explained her conspiracy-laden worldview as the product of her “anti-war” attitude formed during her time as an Army National Guard soldier in Iraq. After she was savaged as a “Russian asset” during Democratic primary debates in 2020, she gravitated towards the GOP on account of Trump’s purported opposition to what he called “endless war” in the Middle East. He nominated her to run the Office of the Director of National Intelligence after winning the 2024 election in what was widely seen at the time as a gesture of contempt towards the U.S. intelligence community, towards which Trump has long harbored distrust due to the role it played in multiple investigations into his campaign and his conduct as president during his first term.More follows...