Tulsi Gabbard, the US Director of National Intelligence, said on Friday that she is resigning from her post to support her husband who has been diagnosed with cancer.
Ms Gabbard said in a post on Truth Social that it had been "a profound honour to serve the American people as DNI". She said in a letter attached to the post that her last day would be June 30.
President Donald Trump said in his own post on Truth Social that Ms Gabbard has done an "incredible job, and we will miss her".
"Her wonderful husband, Abraham, has been recently diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, and she, rightfully, wants to be with him," he wrote.
Fox News, which was first to report the resignation, said Ms Gabbard had notified Mr Trump during an Oval Office meeting of her decision.
She is the fourth Trump cabinet official to resign or be fired since the President returned to the White House last year. Kirsti Noem, former head of Homeland Security, and Pam Bondi, former attorney general, were fired earlier this year. Labour Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer stepped down last month.
Ms Gabbard's deputy Aaron Lukas will take over as acting director.
The resignation of Ms Gabbard, a long-time sceptic of American involvement in overseas wars, comes as the US has become stuck in a stalemate in its war with Iran.
One of her top advisers, Joe Kent, resigned in mid-March over the war in Iran, claiming in a public letter that Israel misled Mr Trump into believing the regime in Tehran posed an imminent threat.
Ms Gabbard, 45, a veteran of the Iraq War who continues to serve as an officer in the Army Reserve, has been a vocal opponent of the US engaging in regime change wars, including as Mr Trump’s intelligence director with oversight over the US government’s 18 spy agencies.
The departing intelligence chief became the subject of controversy earlier this year when she was accused of burying a whistleblower complaint, delaying sending it to Congress for several months and then only sending a heavily redacted version.
The complaint was reportedly based on the intercept of a conversation between two people believed to be connected to foreign intelligence agencies discussing a person close to Mr Trump. An anonymous US intelligence official claimed Ms Gabbard ignored standard information-sharing protocols, restricted access among spy agencies and took the information to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles for political purposes.
