Congress recently received figures showing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shed close to 200 more employees since the start of June, a reduction that hadn't been publicly disclosed until the Washington Post reported on the data this week. Combined with earlier rounds of departures, the agency's headcount now sits at little more than half the roughly 2,000 people it employed when the president's second term began. One outlet's count put the number at around 1,300 by the time the last director left in mid-June, meaning the newest 200-person reduction lands on top of a workforce that had already been cut nearly in half.
Congress stood up ODNI more than two decades ago to fix the intelligence-sharing breakdowns that let the September 11 attacks go undetected, and the office still runs the National Counterterrorism Center today. That mission hasn't shielded it from criticism. President Trump and Republican lawmakers have long argued the agency grew into something far bigger than the lean coordinating body Congress originally chartered — a complaint that predates this year's cuts and has shaped nearly every staffing decision since.
