US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard again on Thursday refused to confirm Donald Trump's remarks that Iran represented an "imminent threat" before the US-Israeli strikes that triggered the war in the Middle East.

"If the president can decide to ignore what you do, why do you still have a job?" asked Jimmy Gomez, a Democratic representative from California, during a hearing before a House committee of elected officials, after Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe asserted that it was up to the U.S. president to assess the degree of urgency of a threat.

The day before, Tulsi Gabbard had already evaded questions from a Senate committee. In a written statement, she had judged that "no effort" had been undertaken by Iranian leaders "to try to restore their enrichment capabilities" since the American bombings against nuclear sites in June 2025, but had not elaborated on these remarks orally.

Tulsi Gabbard merely stated on Thursday that she had passed on to the president the "objective analysis" of the intelligence services.

She confirmed that Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was "seriously injured".

When asked about the fact that US officials seemed more uncertain than two months ago about the intentions of the Iranian government, she replied that it was a "fair assessment".

Intelligence services have been shaken since Tuesday by the resignation of a top US counter-terrorism official, Joseph Kent.

In his resignation letter to Donald Trump, he had judged that "Iran did not represent any imminent threat" to the United States and that the war had been started "under pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby".