At the end of this month, Tulsi Gabbard steps down as the director of national intelligence, following a bumpy 16-month tenure as our nation’s top spy. Gabbard was an unconventional fit, as a Democrat opposed to most foreign wars. In President Donald Trump’s second term, with its multiple military operations around the globe, she became a marginal Cabinet member. This led to West Wing jokes that DNI, in her case, stood for “Do Not Invite.”

Gabbard left little long-term impression on the intelligence community. Demurring from much-needed intelligence community reforms, she expended her bureaucratic energy on historical rather than current issues, often of a conspiratorial flavor, in an effort to please the president and his MAGA base. Put simply, Gabbard, a neophyte in intelligence matters, didn’t know enough about the intelligence community to be an effective boss. Worse, she expended time and energy on witch-hunts against personnel, including on her own staff, who were deemed to be insufficiently loyal to Trump. After years of Trump justifiably complaining about Democratic weaponization of our spy agencies, Gabbard introduced more toxic partisanship into the intelligence community, just in the MAGA direction.