Reuters reported on Tuesday that US intelligence sharing on Iran and other global threats, both with Congress and across the federal government, has slowed and in some cases temporarily stopped during President Donald Trump’s second term. The report cites eight current and former officials and people briefed on the matter, and says the disruption had not been reported before. Right Side News has not seen the underlying records. Apart from the government statements quoted below, everything here rests on those anonymous sources.
What Reuters reports
The trouble began under Tulsi Gabbard, who ran the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) until she resigned in June, according to the officials. Tensions have eased since her departure, but two US officials told Reuters that problems stemming from the clash persist.
The central claim concerns the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the body that pulls together the views of the 18 intelligence agencies into joint assessments. Officials said the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) stopped co-authoring those assessments last year. The council lost its main author as a result, and none of its recent products has focused on the war in Iran, five current and former officials said. The CIA continued sharing intelligence with the council.
Congress is the second area. Two sources said lawmakers and their staff briefly stopped receiving intelligence reports from Gabbard’s office after the June 2025 US military intervention in Iran, and again after the January 2026 capture of Venezuela’s former president, Nicolás Maduro. Gabbard’s team had accused lawmakers of leaking to the press. Her office also stopped briefing Congress on election threats in 2025.
Two former officials described a third rift. Late last year the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stopped sharing some intelligence with the National Counterterrorism Center for several weeks, after the center’s then-director, Joe Kent, and his staff tried to investigate the shooting of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. FBI leaders told Kent the center was overstepping its authority.
Reuters calls the CIA-ODNI dispute one of the biggest turf wars in three decades. It was set off, the officials said, when Gabbard’s office revoked the clearances of current and former intelligence officials a year ago. Three former officials said White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had to step in several times to defuse it. Two former officials and one current official added that some analysts now avoid writing assessments at odds with White House views for fear of political retaliation. They did not say on which topics.
What the government says
CIA spokeswoman Liz Lyons said the agency “participates fully” in providing assessments through the Presidential Daily Brief, which ODNI leads, and through the NIC. That statement does not address whether the CIA stopped co-authoring NIC assessments.
ODNI said in a statement that Director Jay Clayton is committed to making sure the intelligence community has the resources to keep decision-makers informed. An unnamed ODNI official told Reuters the NIC has kept its output close to “historic trendlines.” Another unnamed US official contrasted Gabbard, who did not use the council, with Clayton, who recognizes its value. The White House and the FBI did not respond to requests for comment, and no statement from Gabbard appears in the story.
What complicates the picture
The story has several pieces that cut against its headline. Reuters describes slowdowns and temporary stoppages, not a cutoff. Clayton has resumed congressional briefings on election threats, officials said. And in the latest copy of the story we found, published at 17:30 UTC on November 3 by the Indian outlet ThePrint, one US intelligence official says the CIA has begun co-authoring some NIC assessments again in recent months. Two earlier copies, from WTVB radio and Pakistan’s Express Tribune, do not contain that sentence. We have not seen the Reuters original, so we cannot say which version Reuters currently carries.
The sourcing also deserves a caution. The core claims come from unnamed people. Among the named voices are former deputy directors of national intelligence from both parties, and four former officials told Reuters they are working with Stanford’s Hoover Institution on plans to rebuild the intelligence community under the next administration. That does not make their account wrong, but those sources have a stake in the argument.
Why the timing matters, and what is unproven
Reuters says the slowdown comes as the administration weighs whether to resume strikes on Iran after Tuesday’s midterm elections. Former officials told Reuters the disruptions risk leaving policymakers with an incomplete picture of threats.
Speculation, flagged as such: the report does not show that any decision on Iran was made on thinner analysis than it would otherwise have had. Whether fewer joint assessments changed what the president or Congress saw is an inference by the former officials, not a documented finding. Also unanswered: how many NIC assessments were produced compared with earlier years, and how “historic trendlines” is measured.
The disputed point is narrow and checkable. Either the CIA stopped co-authoring NIC assessments or it did not, and either Congress’s briefings paused or they did not. Committee members with access to the records could settle both. Until then, the account is Reuters’ reporting from anonymous sources, partly answered by on-record statements that stop short of denying it.
Sources
- Reuters (Erin Banco and Jonathan Landay), “Exclusive: US intelligence sharing has fractured under Trump, officials say,” November 3, 2026, via WTVB, ThePrint and Express Tribune
- Iran International, headline and lead sentence of the Reuters report, November 3, 2026
- Just Security, Early Edition: November 3, 2026
How this article was made: Right Side News researched and drafted this article with the help of AI tools. Sources are linked so readers can check them. Spot an error? Tell us in the comments and we will correct it.
