Senate Committee supports Tulsi Gabbard as next intelligence chief

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted on Tuesday 9-8 to support President Donald Trump’s election to National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and cleared an important obstacle to her nomination.

The action of the committee opens the way for the full Senate to decide whether Gabbard should be confirmed as the country’s top -ranked intelligence officer.

“I am pleased that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to promote the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence,” said Senator Tom Cotton, R-sheet., Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, in a statement. “Once I am confirmed, I look forward to working with Ms. Gabbard to keep America in security and to bring poorly necessary reforms to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “

At her confirmation hearing last week, Gabbard had faced pointed questions from some Republicans about her attitudes to Edward Snowden and the controversial surveillance program he helped postpone. The question that caused speculation about whether Gabbard would win support from the committee, where Republicans have a majority of 9-8.

Gabbard had previously called for Snowden to be pardoned, but turned herself at the hearing and said she would not seek a pardon or a drug addict for the former National Security Agency contractor accused of espionage. She also softened her position on the government’s surveillance authorities in accordance with section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Act and said she considered them an important tool.

Before the committee vote, which came in a closed door session, two Republican senators in the panel, who had been seen as potential “no” votes, made it clear that they would support Gabbard.

Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, said on Monday that Gabbard had addressed her concern over Snowden and that she would vote for her. Tuesday, hours before the vote, said late. Todd Young, R-in. That he would vote for Gabbard after she delivered “obligations that will promote our national security.”

Snowden was a NSA contractor in 2013 when he leaked a series of secret information that revealed details of America’s global surveillance operations. Snowden, who fled the country and resident in Russia, has been indicted on espionage prosecution.

Gabbard, a former Hawaii congregation, who once ran for the democratic presidential election, before leaving the party and supporting Trump, had later SPECIAL QUESTIONS During her confirmation hearing from Republican lawmakers about her views on the 702 monitoring program.

When the full Senate records its confirmation, Gabbard had advice to lose up to three Republican votes, provided no Democrats vote for her. It is unclear if there are four Republicans who are prepared to vote against her nomination, but the committee vote has been considered the biggest obstacle to her.

As director of National Intelligence, a position established in the wake of September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Gabbard would oversee 18 intelligence agencies with a budget of approx. $ 100 billion and act as the main adviser of the president on intelligence issues.

As a presidential candidate, a member of Congress and a commentator supporting Trump’s campaign, Gabbard has been accused of repeating propaganda spread by Russia and the former Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, including questioning of US intelligence assessments, which the Syrian government had carried out several chemical weapons attacks on its own people.

During the hearing last week, Gabbard rejected criticism that she has been sitting with us opponents and said it was scandalous to question her loyalty to the United States considering her career in the army and in politics.

She maintains that she comes under attack to question Washington’s national security institution and oppose US military “regime shifts” interventions, including the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

During the hearing last week, Gabbard was not “Putin’s puppet” or “Assads Marionet” or others.

“The fact is what really disturbs my political opponents is that I refuse to be their doll,” Gabbard said.

Gabbard, who served in the Hawaii Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq with a medical entity, has long criticized US foreign policy as imperial and heavy -handed.

The Republican majority of the committee supported Gabbard after she turned or moved her attitudes not only at Snowden and the foreign intelligence monitoring program, but the reason for the war in Ukraine and Trump’s decision by 2020 to order an American drone strike against the supreme Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

Gabbard has suggested that NATO was to blame for triggering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But during the hearing last week she said, “Putin started the war in Ukraine.”

Following the US strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad, Gabbard had sharply criticized the action as reckless and illegal. But during her hearing, she said Trump had taken the right action.