Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's pick 🧸to be director of national intelligenc🗹e, is expected to face tough questions from lawmakers Thursday over past comments about Russia and a 2017 visit with Syria's now-deposed leader.
The back-and-forth during Gabbard's confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee could reveal whether she has successfully assuaged concerns from lawmakers of both parties
Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's pick 🧸to be director of national intelligenc🗹e, is expected to face tough questions from lawmakers Thursday over past comments about Russia and a 2017 visit with Syria's now-deposed leader.
The ba💖ck-and-forth during Gabbard's confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee could reveal whether she has successfully assuaged concerns from lawmakers of both parties — or whether worries about her experience and background will sink her nomination to oversee 18 US intelligence agencies.
Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, is a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard who deployed 🌄twice to the Middle East and ran for president in 2020. She has no formal intelligence exper🌊ience, however, and has never run a government agency or department.
It's Gabbard's comments, however, that have posed the biggest challenge to her confirmation. Gabbard has repeatedly echoed Russian propaganda used to justify the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine and criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a corrupt autocrat.
She's been accused of spreading Russian disinformation by Republican lawmakers and⛦ has even won praise 🍬in Russian state-controlled media.
A 2017 visit with Syrian President Bashar Assad is another point of contention. Assad was rꦯecently d❀eposed as his country's leader following a brutal civil war in which he was accused of using chemical weapons. Following her visit, Gabbard faced criticism that she was legitimizing a dictator and then more questions when she said she was skeptical that Assad had used chemical weapons.
As a lawmaker, Gabbard sponsored legi𓆉slation that would have repealed a key surveillance program known as Section 702, which allows authoritie✨s to collect the communications of suspected terrorists overseas.
Gabbard said the program could be violating the rights of Americans whose communications are swept up inadvertently, but national security officials say the program ha🐎s saved lives.
She now says she supports the prograꦚm, noting new safeguards designed to protect Americans' privacy.
While lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns about Gabbard's nomination, Republicans have increasingly come✅ to support her. Given thin Republican margins in the Senate, she will need almost all GOP senators to vote yes in order to win confirmation.
Sen. Tom Cotton, chair💎man of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that while he understands there are questions about Gabbard's past views, qu𓂃estions about her loyalty to the U.S. are inappropriate.
“She's passed five different background cꦬhecks. I reviewed the latest one. It's clean as a whistle,” the Arkansas Republican said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It's fine for people to have policy differences and ask questions about those differences. I hope no one would impugn 🧔Ms. Gabbard's patriotism or her integrity.”