IFor the Senate votes to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, she will be the person who informs him every day on the country’s most kept secrets. During her confirmation consultation on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, senators from both parties expressed serious concerns about whether they trust Gabbard in the crucial role.
While Gabbard, a former Democratic Convention of Hawaii and the US Army Reserve Officer without a background in intelligence, faced questions of controversial moments in her past – her 2017 meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, her expressive skepticism of US intelligence assessments about Syria’s use of chemical weapons and her criticism of how the intelligence community collects data about American citizens – many senators who were home to her praise for former national security agency contractor Edward Snowden as a way of questioning her overall judgment.
In 2013, Snowden fled the country after removing 1.5 million classified documents on military and intelligence programs that originally traveled to Hong Kong to share some of the files with journalists and eventually seek asylum in Russia. Snowden leaked thousands of documents that revealed a wide collection of US telephone records of the US government and other secret programs, which got a national debate on civil freedoms. Gabbard has called Snowden “brave.” Senators suggested that Gabbard’s support for someone who so famously leaked classified documents would undermine her credibility as Trump’s director of National Intelligence.
Asked repeatedly on Thursday if she stood by this compliment, Gabbard would not return from it. “Edward Snowden broke the law,” she said. “He also exposed information that revealed the united states’ illegal activities.” Snowden’s leaks prompted Congress to adopt the US Freedom Act in 2015, designed to limit the collection of US telephone registers.
An Investigation Committee Survey in Bipartisan concluded in 2016 that Snowden’s theft caused “huge damage” to national security and quoted a Russian official who said Snowden shared intelligence with Moscow.
Several senators pressed Gabbard to call Snowden a traitor. She refused steadfastly.
Republican Senator James Lankford from Oklahoma asked Gabbard if Snowden was “a traitor” when he leaked intelligence and fled to Russia. “Senator, I’m focused on the future and how we can prevent something similar from happening again,” Gabbard said.
Another Republican, Indiana senator Todd Young, pointed out that Gabbard has previously said that Snowden should be pardoned and asked Gabbard if Snowden betrayed his duty to the American people. Gabbard would not go that far. Instead, she reiterated that Snowden broke the law and said he “released his information in a way he shouldn’t have.”
Young told Gabbard that Snowden probably looked at the consultation. Snowden herself weighed in on Thursday before Gabbard met with senators, and wrote at X that Gabbard “will be obliged to reject all prior support for alerts as a condition of confirmation.” Snowden said ugly that he urged her to do it and tell the senators that he “hurt the national security and the sweet, soft feelings of the staff.”
“This can be a rare case where I agree with Mr. Snowden, ”Young said.
Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat representing Colorado, was annoyed when Gabbard continued to talk about a condemnation of Snowden’s actions and refused to repeat previous comments justified Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “Can’t we do better than anyone who can’t answer if Snowden was a traitor five times today, who made excuses for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?”
“I question her judgment, that’s the question at stake here,” Bennet said.
When asked if she was aware that her comments about Russia’s invasion in 2022 were reinforced by Russian State -TV, Gabbard said: “I’m not aware of Russian propaganda. My goal is to talk the truth whether you like it or not. “
At the beginning of the hearing, Gabbard gave a scary review of Track Record for the US intelligence community. “Too long, defective, inadequate or weaponed intelligence has led to expensive failures and the undermining of our national security and god-gone freedoms laid down in our constitution,” she said. The false intelligence conclusion that Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction led to the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers, millions of deaths, the increase in Islamist terrorist groups in the region and strengthening Iran, she said. And the intelligence community exceeded in his investigation by Donald Trump during his first period to “fake portray him as a doll of Putin,” she said. If it is confirmed to be the country’s top intelligence officer, Gabbard said she intends to “break this cycle of failure and the weapons of weapons and the politicalization of the intelligence community.”
When the hearing ended dinner on Thursday, it was unclear whether Pushback -gabbard received at Snowden and other questions would stop her nomination. Almost every Republican Senator has signed Trump’s nominees in the past few days. Enough Republicans were willing to brush accusations of heavy drinking and aggressive behavior by Pete Hegeth to confirm him as a defense secretary. And most Republican senators seemed to be ready to look past Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s extensive public campaigns against vaccines to sign him that operates health and human services.