Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“Former U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's choice to be director of national intelligence, faced harsh criticism of her past defense of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and comments seen as supportive of Russia at a confirmation hearing on Thursday… Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become an independent. She backed Trump and joined the Republican Party in 2024.” Reuters
The left is critical of Gabbard’s qualifications and views on foreign policy.
“The DNI job was created to oversee and coordinate the 18 agencies that make up the ‘intelligence community.’ Because this is largely a management job rather than a policy position, the legislation that created the post specifically requires that anyone nominated ‘have extensive national security experience.’… [Gabbard] has served the country honorably, but not in positions that would give her the tools to oversee the colossus of the intelligence community…
“[Moreover] she has repeatedly been on the wrong side of issues. In 2016, she opposed the Global Magnitsky Act that imposed sanctions against human rights offenders in Russia and other countries. After her 2017 meetings with Assad, she defended him against allegations that he had used chemical weapons…
“Her most worrisome failure is on Ukraine. When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, she promptly blamed it on the Biden administration for ignoring ‘Russia’s legitimate security concerns.’ She then backed false Russian claims about what she said were ‘biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release and spread deadly pathogens.’ That was pure propaganda.”
David Ignatius, Washington Post
“[Gabbard’s defense of the Assad regime] didn’t change in subsequent years, even though it contradicted U.S. and French intelligence — as well as joint reporting from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations…
“Gabbard instead relied on reports from MIT professor emeritus Theodore Postol that contained basic errors — such as mixing up chemical weapons attacks that took place four years apart. Postol has a long history of questioning the evidence for chemical weapons attacks launched by the Assad regime, and he is often cited as an authority by pro-Assad propaganda outlets like Russia Today… Gabbard has proved over and over again that she is incapable of objectively and reliably evaluating intelligence.”
Matt Johnson, MSNBC
“Senators of both parties [asked] about her opposition to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the U.S. to intercept communications of suspected terrorists or criminals abroad. The interceptions are sometimes done in ways that pick up calls involving Americans as well. Informed that 60 percent of a president’s intelligence comes from information gathered through Section 702, Gabbard said at the hearing that she has changed her mind on this issue as a result of reforms that were made to the law…
“She was asked which reforms changed her mind. She didn’t answer. [Sen. Mark Warner] said he didn’t ‘buy’ her ‘confirmation conversion’ on the issue anyway. He quoted her appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast in May 2024—one month after the reforms passed—saying that they ‘took an already bad problem and made it many, many times worse.’… Gabbard may well become President Trump’s first Cabinet nominee to get voted down by the Senate.”
Fred Kaplan, Slate
The right is divided about Gabbard.
The right is divided about Gabbard.
“In 2012, Tulsi Gabbard was seen as the future of the Democratic party. She gave a headline speech at the [DNC] convention… Then she told the truth. She exposed the party’s anti-democratic efforts in the 2016 primaries that denied a fair process in favor of coronating Hillary Clinton. She called out the entrenched foreign policy elite for its decades of endless war. And she spoke out against the weaponization of government against domestic political enemies…
“[Five years ago] Tulsi stated her intention to stop what she accurately saw as a ‘new Cold War’ with Russia—underscoring the danger of miscalculation that could lead to conflict and even a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia. She went unheeded. Three years after her prescient warning, Russia invaded Ukraine. The director of national intelligence should be a person with this foresight…
“Biden’s last reported direct communication with Putin was in February 2022, just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Half a million deaths later, one must wonder whether the 46th president regrets not picking up the phone or arranging a summit. Put simply, why is diplomatic engagement—whether Trump with Putin or Kim Jong Un, or Gabbard with Assad—treated as more controversial than the failed foreign policy record of the so-called expert class?”
Jake Mercier, American Conservative
Some argue, “Throughout her career, Gabbard has been ideologically hostile to the job she’s been selected for. She long opposed Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows us to monitor the communications of non-Americans located outside the United States… She’s now converted on the issue, but that it took being desperate for confirmation votes for her to make her change is not comforting…
“Gabbard co-sponsored legislation ‘expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Federal Government should drop all charges against Edward Snowden.’ The resolution went nowhere because not everyone was as sympathetic to a figure who illegally absconded with classified information… handed it over to reporters… and subsequently defected to Russia. Snowden is, quite simply, a traitor and fugitive from U.S. justice. A DNI pick taking his side is like an AG nominee thinking the mob gets a bad rap.”
The Editors, National Review
Others argue, “Whatever one’s thoughts on Snowden and his actions, the committee’s obsession with the subject and its defending FISA without giving attention to the many documented abuses by America’s intel agencies are appalling…
“In addition to spying on Trump’s 2016 campaign, agencies such as the FBI were instrumental in fomenting the debunked Russia collusion hoax, spying on Catholics, targeting Trump supporters and parents at school board meetings, arresting pro-lifers, and partaking in a whole host of other egregious abuses… Gabbard is absolutely right to be skeptical of the vast surveillance powers wielded by America’s intel apparatus.”
Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist
