Tulsi Gabbard to face questions on Assad visit, Russia views in confirmation hearing
Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, will face accusations that she is an apologist for foreign dictators and heavy scrutiny over her meeting with Syria's toppled president at her Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.
Democratic senators on the Intelligence Committee are expected to home in on Gabbard's 2017 visit to Syria to meet then-President Bashar al-Assad and pro-Russia talking points she has espoused in the years since. Critics blasted the meeting as legitimizing Assad four years after he used lethal chemical weapons on Syrian civilians.
"It was common knowledge that Assad was gassing the civilian population," Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who sits on the committee, told CBS's "Face the Nation. "She took the time and the effort to try to make a case... to try to prove that he was not using chemical weapons."
"I have a hard time understanding why you would want to do that," he added.
Gabbard and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Gabbard nomination triggers alarm from some in intelligence community
If confirmed, Gabbard, a former Democratic congressmember from Hawaii, will oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies.
But her nomination was met with alarm from some members of the intelligence establishment – nearly 100 former intelligence and national security officials, including ex-CIA agents and deputy secretaries of state, signed onto a letter urging senators to examine records on Gabbard behind closed doors.
Gabbard's "sympathy for dictators like Vladimir Putin and Assad raises questions about her judgment and fitness," they wrote.
Gabbard has been praised by Russian state TV for arguing Russia invaded Ukraine in response to NATO expansion and claiming the U.S. was supporting "Nazis" in Ukraine.
Some Republicans stand behind Gabbard
On Wednesday, some Republican lawmakers and Trump surrogates expressed public support for Gabbard.
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Fox Business that Democrats have been “manufacturing baseless claims and allegations” against Gabbard.
“For years they've questioned her patriotism. This is a woman who served 21 years in uniform, who's passed five background checks. I reviewed the latest one last week. It's clean as a whistle,” Cotton said.
Cotton said Gabbard will get a full and fair hearing before the committee on Thursday, and that Republicans will then make sure she’s confirmed.
“We've told the Democrats we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way, and the hard way means we're going to be in through nights and through weekends” until Gabbard and other nominees are confirmed by the full Senate, Cotton said.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee likened those opposing Gabbard’s confirmation – especially in the national security bureaucracy – to those who have criticized Trump over the years.
“This is what the Deep State does to reformers,” Lee said in a post on the social media platform @X. “We can’t let the Deep State win. Confirming @TulsiGabbard is the way to stop this.”
Last month, eight Republican senators said they were unsure about supporting Gabbard, Reuters reported, citing a Trump transition source and a second source with knowledge of the issue, raising questions as to whether she can get the votes needed to pass the Senate. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the chamber.
Gabbard flipped right after Democratic presidential primary run
A combat veteran deployed to the Middle East during the War on Terror, Gabbard staked out an anti-interventionist position in Congress. She voted against authorizing President Obama to use military force in Syria after Assad's use of chemical weapons crossed his "red line," saying it would be a "serious mistake" despite the "carnage and loss of lives."
Along with her support for other progressive priorities, such as opposing private prisons and fixing the "broken criminal justice system," her foreign policy positions gained traction with a sliver of antiwar voters in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. She attracted some buzz for digging into Kamala Harris' prosecutorial record of jailing marijuana users at a debate, but later dropped out with single-digit support.
Gabbard was known for sometimes criticizing fellow Democrats, drawing stinging rebukes from some party leaders and praise from Trump for voting "present" in his first impeachment. In response to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying Gabbard is "a favorite of the Russians" and being "groomed" by Republicans, Gabbard called Clinton "queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long," and said the party needed to break away from “Bush-Clinton-Trump” foreign policy.
She began to more consistently espouse Republican positions in 2022, joining Fox News as a paid contributor who frequently criticized the Biden administration. In a social media post that year, she announced in a video statement that she was leaving the Democratic Party, which she said "stands for a government that is of, by and for the powerful elite." The party is "now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness," she added.
Gabbard faces GOP criticisms over Snowden stance
Some are concerned by Gabbard's 2020 call for the U.S. to drop criminal charges against Edward Snowden, a man many of them consider a traitor for leaking a huge tranche of National Security Agency documents he stole while working as an NSA contractor in Hawaii and then leaked to the media.
The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board on Tuesday urged the Senate to reject Gabbard’s nomination.
“No, the question isn’t Ms. Gabbard’s patriotism. It’s judgment, and what message it would send friends and foes to confirm a director of national intelligence who doesn’t really seem to believe in protecting national intelligence,” the Journal editorial board said.
But Gabbard has relented on her former strong support for limiting intelligence agencies' authority to spy on Americans.
A month before her confirmation hearing, she reversed course on her opposition to Section 702 of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which allows the National Security Agency to spy on communications of foreigners without a warrant – including any communications they share with Americans. Gabbard had voted against the program's reauthorization in 2018.
"Section 702, unlike other FISA authorities, is crucial for gathering foreign intelligence on non-U.S. persons abroad," she said in a statement. "This unique capability cannot be replicated and must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans."