US intelligence sharing on Iran and other global threats with Congress and across the federal government has slowed and, in some cases, temporarily stopped during President Donald Trump’s second term, according to eight current and former officials and people briefed on the matter.
The account comes from a Reuters exclusive published on November 3, 2026. Former officials and outside experts warned that the disruptions risk leaving policymakers with an incomplete picture of the threats facing the country, echoing intelligence failures exposed after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The timing matters. The slowdown comes as the administration weighs whether to resume strikes on Iran after Tuesday’s midterm elections, Reuters reported.
What stopped, and where
At the centre of the account is a breakdown between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The CIA has stopped co-authoring assessments with the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an analytical group within ODNI, the officials said.
That has reduced the number of reports that pull together the intelligence community’s views for decision-makers on subjects including Iran. The assessments are meant to consolidate the views of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, and the council relied heavily on the CIA for analysis on topics such as Iran and Russia.
While the CIA continued sharing intelligence with the council and working with it on some reports, its analysts focused on their own assessments. Since the move, the council — also hit by staff cuts — has slowed production of its assessments, two people familiar with the matter said. None have focused on the war in Iran, five current and former officials said.
Lawmakers and their staffs also briefly stopped receiving intelligence reports from the director of national intelligence’s office in the days after the US military intervention in Iran in June 2025, and again after the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January 2026, according to two people familiar with the matter. The director’s team had accused lawmakers of leaking to the press, Reuters reported.
How the rift developed
The problems emerged during Tulsi Gabbard’s tenure as director of national intelligence, amid deep tensions between her office and the CIA, Reuters reported. While those tensions have subsided since her resignation in June, problems stemming from the clash persist, according to two US officials familiar with the matter.
The infighting — triggered when Gabbard’s office revoked the security clearances of current and former intelligence officials a year ago — reached the point where White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had to intervene several times to defuse tensions, three former officials said.
The situation was worsened, officials said, by significant cuts to national security agencies, including ODNI and the CIA, as Trump moved to remove or sideline officials he viewed as disloyal.
Some analysts who remain at the intelligence agencies are now careful not to write assessments at odds with the White House’s views for fear of political retaliation, two former officials and a current US official said. The officials did not say which topics the analysts were avoiding.
The official response
The agencies dispute the picture of a broken system. CIA spokesperson Liz Lyons said the CIA “participates fully” in providing intelligence assessments through the Presidential Daily Brief, which is led by ODNI, and through the NIC.
An ODNI official said the group has maintained assessment levels close to “historic trendlines.” In a statement to Reuters, ODNI said Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, who became director in August, “remains committed to ensuring that ODNI and the intelligence community have the resources they need to continue informing key US government decision-makers and keeping Americans safe.”
A US official told Reuters that while Gabbard did not use the NIC, “DNI Clayton has proven to be a good steward of the IC and recognizes the value of the NIC.” Clayton has resumed congressional briefings on election threats, officials said, after Gabbard’s office stopped briefing Congress on election threats in 2025.
The White House did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Other fractures reported
In another clash between agencies, the FBI late last year stopped sharing some intelligence with the National Counterterrorism Center for several weeks, two former officials said. That followed an attempt by the center’s then-head, Joe Kent, and his staff to investigate the shooting of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. FBI leaders told Kent they believed the center was overstepping its authority, Reuters reported. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Some former officials are now working on a bipartisan basis at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution to draw up plans to rebuild the intelligence community in the next administration, four former US officials said.
“All of these things are adding up in a really complex world where policymakers need to have a more sophisticated, nuanced, and integrated view of the world, and they are getting less,” said Beth Sanner, a former deputy director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term.
Why it matters
The dispute matters because joint assessments are how competing agency views are reconciled into a single picture for the president, ministers and lawmakers. When that machinery slows, decisions on Iran — and on other threats — are made from thinner, more fragmented reporting.
Former deputy director of national intelligence Morgan Muir, who also briefed President George W. Bush, warned that hollowing out coordination creates a system in which “everybody can pick their own lily pad to listen to.”
What remains unknown is how far the disruption affected specific decisions, and whether Clayton’s stewardship restores joint CIA-NIC authorship. Reuters reports the disruption itself had not been previously reported — the underlying agency disputes, not every operational consequence, are what officials have described.
What happens next
Watch for whether the administration resumes strikes on Iran after the midterms, whether joint CIA-NIC assessments reappear on Iran, and whether Congress presses for restored briefings. Any of those would test whether the fractures Reuters describes are healing or hardening.
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Sources
Reuters, “US intelligence sharing has fractured under Trump, officials say,” November 3, 2026: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-intelligence-sharing-has-fractured-under-trump-officials-say-2026-11-03/
The Jerusalem Post (Reuters), “US officials say intelligence sharing fractured during Trump’s second term,” November 3, 2026: https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-913699
Express Tribune (Reuters), “US intelligence sharing has fractured under Trump, officials say,” November 3, 2026: https://tribune.com.pk/story/2638456/us-intelligence-sharing-has-fractured-under-trump-officials-say?amp=1
Frequently asked questions
What is the National Intelligence Council? It is the analytical group within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that consolidates the views of the US intelligence agencies into assessments for decision-makers.
Has intelligence sharing stopped completely? No. Reuters reports it slowed and, in some cases, temporarily stopped — not that it ceased entirely. The CIA says it participates fully through the Presidential Daily Brief and the NIC.
Why is this surfacing now? The report lands as the administration weighs whether to resume strikes on Iran after the midterm elections, when policymakers most need a complete threat picture.
