US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard was kept out of planning to capture Venezuela’s Maduro: Report

The White House reportedly excluded US’ Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard from months of planning to capture and oust Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro. The move to not include her had become so well-known that some White House aides joked that the acronym for her title of DNI stood for ‘Do Not Invite’. 

According to a report in Bloomberg, the decision to keep Gabbard out of the planning stemmed from her previous opposition to military action in Venezuela which had cast a doubt over her willingness to support Trump in his plans. 

Gabbard had said in 2019 – a Democratic congresswoman then – that the US needed to ‘stay out’ of Venezuela. In fact, as recent as last month Gabbard had railed against ‘warmongers’ who wished to push the US into a conflict.

The exclusion of Gabbard has fuelled rumours about widening fissures within MAGA supporters and Trump’s team. 

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance said that the notion that Gabbard or he was kept out of the plans was ‘false’, the report added. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Trump has full confidence in DNI Gabbard and that she is “doing a fantastic job”.

Vance said that the team kept the Venezuela operation “very tight to the senior Cabinet level officials” and a “secret for a very long time”. 

A senior intelligence official, however, said that it was Gabbard who provided the intelligence that helped the overall mission. Gabbard had also lauded the Venezuela operation and its “flawless execution” after Maduro’s capture.

The White House had shared pictures after Maduro’s capture that showed Trump huddled with his close aides including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller but Gabbard wasn’t one of them. It must be noted that as DNI, Gabbard is meant to be Trump’s principal intelligence adviser overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies, including Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 

A separate report by The Washington Post had also reported that Gabbard had little role in the planning and execution of the Venezuela raid.