For most of her career, Tulsi Gabbard may have been taking direction from a reclusive Hawaii guru — the allegation at the center of a Washington Post investigation that shadowed her out of office as Director of National Intelligence. Her replacement, federal housing-finance official Bill Pulte, arrived with no national security background and, as The Atlantic's Shane Harris reports, may be holding the job unlawfully. Two directors in two months. Matt speaks with Shane — who's been reporting both stories — t...
For most of her career, Tulsi Gabbard may have been taking direction from a reclusive Hawaii guru — the allegation at the center of a Washington Post investigation that shadowed her out of office as Director of National Intelligence. Her replacement, federal housing-finance official Bill Pulte, arrived with no national security background and, as The Atlantic's Shane Harris reports, may be holding the job unlawfully. Two directors in two months. Matt speaks with Shane — who's been reporting both stories — to trace them to a single fault line: an office built after 9/11 to coordinate the spy agencies has proven uniquely easy to politicize, and a bipartisan chorus, including veterans of the community itself, now wants it cut down or scrapped. Which leaves the harder question: whether an office this easy to bend should exist at all.
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"Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career" by Jon Swaine | The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/06/21/tulsi-gabbard-her-guru-mysterious-messages-that-helped-shape-her-political-career/
"Trump Has a Bill Pulte Problem" by Shane Harris & Vivian Salama | The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/06/bill-pulte-unlawful-intelligence-director/687684/
"Tulsi Gabbard’s Office Shouldn’t Exist" by John Sipher | The Bulwark: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/tulsi-gabbard-office-shouldnt-exist-director-national-intelligence-9-11
More of Shane’s reporting for The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/shane-harris/
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Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.
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