Tulsi Gabbard’s view of Russia, Syria, Trump and Government Monitoring – In his own words

Washington (AP) – as an unconventional choice to lead the country’s intelligence service, Tulsi Gabbard is expected to face tough questions About her previous comments on Syria, Russia, foreign surveillance and President Donald Trump as she goes ahead of legislators on her confirmation hearing on Thursday.

The former Democratic Congress Woman from Hawaii is Trump’s nominated to be the next director of national intelligenceA job created after September 11, 2001, attacks that supervise and coordinate work on more than a dozen intelligence agencies.

Gabbard, a Colonel in the National Guard, who served two trips in the Middle East, has alerted some intelligence and national security officials in the United States and other places with comments that are sympathetic to Russia and criticism of a critical surveillance program.

Here’s a look at Gabbard with his own words:

On Syria and visit with Assad

Gabbard traveled to Syria in 2017 To meet with the then President Bashar Assad, a visit that angry legislators from both parties who said she helped legitimize a crop criminal and important ally in Russia and Iran.

Gabbard has defended the trip and his belief that meeting with opponents can result in dialogue and peace. Assad fled from Syria In December after being exposed to his country’s brutal civil war.

“When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did it because I felt it is important that if we acknowledge to really worry about the Syrian people about their suffering, then we have to be able to meet with anyone we need for if there is an opportunity for us to achieve peace, ”Gabbard told CNN at the time.

She later said she was “skeptical” Assad’s regime used prohibited chemical weapons To beat his own people in spite of the fact that it is Repeated conclusion by US authorities and Independent analysts.

“I have not seen that independent investigation occurs and that the evidence presented exactly what happened and there are a number of theories of exactly what happened that day,” Gabbard said of Assad’s attack during a 2017 CNN performance.

In a 2019 interview about MSNBC, she said, “Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.”

After Assad’s broadcast has Gabbard repeated TrumpIt has said that Assad fell because Russia withdrew his support during his war in Ukraine, a conflict Trump has said he hopes to resolve.

“I stand in full support and agree wholeheartedly with the statements made by President Trump,” She told journalists In December. “My own views and experiences are shaped by my several deployments and see first -hand costs of war.”

Trump, she said, “is fully engaged, as he has said over and over again to put an end to wars and demonstrate peace through strength.”

About Russia and Ukraine

Gabbard has repeated Russia’s arguments about his invasion of Ukraine, suggesting that Moscow had justified sending troops into the neighboring country. She also approved Russian claims that the US and Ukraine were involved in dangerous biological research before the war.

She has criticized the government of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr zelenskyy As a “corrupt autocracy” and has expressed sympathy for Russia’s attitude considering Ukraine’s desire to participate in NATO, the Western Military Alliance.

“This war and suffering could have been easily avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply recognized Russia’s legitimate security concerns,” she released on Twitter at the beginning of Russia’s invasion in 2022.

Shortly after the war, Russian state media started the false claim that the United States was involved in secret Biowapon’s research in Ukraine. The conspiracy theory depended on the existence of US-funded laboratories that were not secret and were involved in traditional public health research and efforts to prevent pandemics.

Gabbard did not make this distinction when she suggested that the laboratories could “release and spread deadly pathogens” – Repeat of similar Russian conspiracy theories about the laboratories.

“These laboratories must be closed immediately and the pathogens they have must be destroyed,” she said. Her comments drew a sharp reprimand from legislators, including Some RepublicansThere said she parrot Russian propaganda.

Gabbard later said she had only referred to traditional public health research and not secret bioLabs. But her comments were taken seriously in Russia, where the state -controlled media has often praised Gabbard. An article last year called her “Superwoman.”

At Edward Snowden

Gabbard has praised Edward SnowdenA former National Security Agency contractor who fled to Russia after he was indicted in 2013 to illegally postpone the government’s surveillance methods. Snowden is considered a traitor by many security officials and has been hailed as a heroic warning of others.

Gabbard sponsored legislation to end Snowden’s prosecution and put her contrary to Senate Republicans who have criticized Snowden’s actions. Snowden Received Russian citizenship In 2022.

“If it wasn’t for Snowden, the American people would never have learned that the NSA collected phone registers and spied on Americans. As president, I will protect alerts that expose threats to our freedom and freedom, ”Gabbard wrote on social media in 2019.

On government monitoring

As a member of Congress, Gabbard tried to cancel a surveillance program used to spy on suspected terrorists and foreign agents abroad – a program she now says she supports when seeking Senate’s confirmation.

The program, Known as section 702 of the Foreign Information ActAllows the US government to collect without a justification for communicating non-Americans located outside the country for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence. National security officials say that 702, first approved in 2008, has saved lives by preventing terrorist attacks, while the government also helped the government keep ahead of foreign cyber attacks or espionage.

Gabbard introduced legislation in 2020, which would have abolished the law, as she said made it too easy to get Americans’ private communication without a justification.

“The protection of our civil freedoms is important,” she said of her bill that did not adopt. “Join us to ensure that our constitutional rights are maintained.”

Her resistance has related to legislators from both parties who said her criticism of the surveillance program would be a responsibility for her nomination as intelligence chief.

Gabbard now says she supports section 702 and has called it a “decisive” intelligence tool. She said her view changed after Congress added protection to the law.

“My past concern over FISA was based on inadequate protection of civil freedoms, especially with regard to the FBI’s abuse of guarantee -free search forces on US citizens,” she told CNN on January 10. “If confirmed as DNI, I will maintain Americans’ fourth change rights while maintaining important national security tools such as section 702 to ensure the security and freedom of the American people. “

On her support for Trump

Gabbard’s loyalty to Trump represents a face from just a few years ago when she ran as president as a Democrat and ended up joining her party’s 2020-nominated, Joe Bid.

In 2019, she voted “current” during Trump’s first hearing but while she refused to vote to impeach, she reprimanded his behavior As president and said he had “violated public confidence.”

“There is no question in my mind that Donald Trump is unfit to act as president and commander. I’ve said this again and again, ”Gabbard said in 2019.

Gabbard was a Democrat when she served in Congress and represented her home state of Hawaii. In 2022, she became an independent and said that the Democratic Party was dominated by an “elitist cabal of warmer” and “woke up” ideologues.

She then fought for more high -profile Republicans and became a contributor to Fox News.

“Today’s Democratic Party is not recognizable from the party I ended up 20 years ago,” she said when explains her decision.

When she approved Trump last year, Gabbard said he had “the courage to meet with opponents, dictators, allies and partners in the pursuit of peace and see war as a last resort” and added that the United States was “closer to the bite “Closer to the brink of nuclear war than we have ever been before. “

She has also criticized criminal prosecutions of Trump and said the bite’s administration “conditioned us to accept a dictatorship by rationalizing their own use of our Ministry of Justice to target President Trump.”