By Katie Bo Lillis

(CNN) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has fired the top two career officials leading the National Intelligence Council, the senior most analytical group in the intelligence community whose job it is to understand and assess the biggest threats facing the United States.

Gabbard fired Mike Collins, the acting chair, and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, on Tuesday, a spokesman confirmed to CNN.

The dismissals come as Gabbard has vowed to root out what she has described as politicization of the intelligence community, and launched a war on leaks to the media that critics say is hollowing out the intelligence community of needed expertise from experienced professionals.

Jonathan Panikoff, a former intelligence official who served on the NIC and has worked with both people, said Collins is “an unbelievable professional who’s served selflessly for 30 years and is a real China expert,” and Langan-Riekhof “is not just a strategic thinker but an unbelievably gifted analyst.

“The Director is working alongside President Trump to end the weaponization and politicization of the Intelligence Community,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence spokesman said in a statement.

CNN has reached out to Collins and Langan-Riekhof through an intermediary because their contact information was not immediately available.

The dismissals come shortly after the ODNI — which Gabbard leads — released a declassified assessment from the NIC about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua that undercut the Trump administration’s key argument for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportations, the key provisions of which had already leaked to the media and which Gabbard has said is under investigation.

Gabbard, when asked about the assessment, blasted the media for “twisting and manipulating intelligence assessments to undermine the president’s agenda to keep the American people safe.”

It’s not clear whether the two episodes are linked in any way — but Gabbard’s crackdown on unauthorized disclosures to the media has been a key pillar of her broad efforts to do what she has described as depoliticizing the intelligence community.

Gabbard recently told conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly that there are 11 internal investigations into unauthorized disclosures to the media and said that she has referred three cases to the Department of Justice for potential prosecution.

“Really what is happening when they do that is they’re undermining our democracy because what they’re doing… is saying, ‘I’m doing what’s best for the country and I know what’s better for the country than the majority of the American people who chose this duly elected president,” Gabbard told Kelly. “The only way we bring about accountability is by doing the work of conducting these investigations.”

The-CNN-Wire
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