Trump announced Gordon’s August 15 departure on Twitter, calling her “a great professional with a long and distinguished career” and saying he’d “developed great respect” for her over the past two years.

Her resignation “coincides with the retirement” of current DNI Coats, meaning that Trump can now appoint whoever he wishes to be the acting director. Under the law that established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, he was obligated to make Gordon acting director upon Coats’s departure.

Trump’s first pick to head ODNI was Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), but that sparked an avalanche of criticism from Democrats and former intelligence officials, worried about the Texas congressman’s criticism of the ‘Russiagate’ probe. He ended up withdrawing that nomination on August 2, blaming the “LameStream Media” who he said treated Ratcliffe “very unfairly.”

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