Page 1 GAO-25-108078 ODNI Priority Recommendations
of
May 1, 2025
The Honorable Tulsi Gabbard
Director of National Intelligence
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Washington, D.C. 20511
Priority Open Recommendations: Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Dear Director Gabbard:
Congratulations on your appointment. The purpose of this letter is to call your personal attention
to three areas based on GAO’s past work and 14 open priority recommendations.
1
Additionally,
there are 31 other open GAO recommendations that we will continue to work with your staff to
address.
We are highlighting the following areas that warrant your timely and focused attention as you
consider mission and staffing needs. Specifically:
Personnel Vetting Risks. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has not
fully addressed all priority recommendations related to the security clearance process. We have
made recommendations to improve ODNI’s oversight of reciprocity and use of performance
measures.
2
For example, related to reciprocity, we found that the data collected by ODNI are
not sufficiently reliable to determine the extent to which agencies have granted security
clearance reciprocity. In addition, 22 of the 31 agencies GAO surveyed in 2024 stated that
incomplete and inaccurate information in information technology (IT) systems was the most
significant reciprocity challenge they faced.
We recommended that the Director of National Intelligence (1) follow best practices for
evaluating the reliability of agency-submitted data and (2) implement a plan to ensure that IT
systems contain complete and accurate information required to make security clearance
reciprocity determinations. By taking these actions, ODNI would likely improve reciprocity rates.
This will enable agencies to access personnel with needed skills more quickly and help those
agencies achieve their missions.
Addressing these personnel vetting-related recommendations is imperative to improving the
government-wide personnel security clearance process, which has been on GAO’s High-Risk
List since 2018. We added this issue, in part, because of delays in the process. In subsequent
updates, we have provided information on the extent to which agencies are meeting timeliness
1
GAO considers a recommendation to be a priority if, when implemented, it may significantly improve government
operations, for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making
progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue.
2
Due to the sensitive nature of the recommendation related to ODNI’s use of performance measures for the security
clearance process, additional details are in the classified enclosure to this letter.
