Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, has little experience working with the nation’s spy agencies and a long track record of speaking out against Russian disinformation as they work to expose and counter it. according to critics, it should be disqualifying.
Gabbard, 43, who represented Hawaii as a Democrat from 2013-2021 and ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020 before becoming a Republican earlier this year, has been accused of sympathizing with the Kremlin and embracing propaganda created by Russia to justify its invasion. from Ukraine
At the start of the conflict, Gabbard blamed the Biden administration and NATO, saying they provoked Russia’s attack by ignoring what she called “legitimate security concerns” to keep Ukraine a member of the defense alliance.
Tulsi Gabbard is seen in uniform in this photo posted on her Facebook page.
Tulsi Gabbard/Facebook
In March 2022, Gabbard posted a video on Twitter, now on X, about U.S.-funded biolabs in what she said were “undeniable facts” in a “fact-devastated country” that “even in the best case scenario” could have “easily been”. committed”.
“Instead of trying to cover this up, the Biden-Harris administration needs to work with Russia, Ukraine, NATO, the UN to immediately impose a cease-fire on all military action around these labs, pending confirmation,” he said. .
At the same time, a commentator on Kremlin state media referred to her as “Russia’s girlfriend” and her comments have appeared on the country’s state television programs, along with Tucker Carlson’s scathing criticism of US involvement in Ukraine.
Former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attends a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump at PPG Paints Arena on Nov. 4, 2024, in Pittsburgh.
Jeenah Moon/Reuters
Gabbard’s claims echo a decade-old false Russian conspiracy theory that Washington is covertly funding the development of biological weapons in former Soviet countries, which the US and international organizations have repeatedly condemned.
While he later said his comments were about public health research labs in the conflict zone, he also expressed concern that Ukraine possessed biological weapons in an interview with former Fox News executive Carlson days before he took to social media.
Democrats and the president-elect’s opponents were quick to condemn Trump’s selection of Gabbard, with whom he appeared regularly in the final months of his campaign.
“Do you really want to have all the secrets of the United States and our defense intelligence agencies when it’s been so cleanly in Putin’s pocket?” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, pressed him in a recent interview.
“His judgment is non-existent,” Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, now a fierce Trump critic, said on Sunday.
“The idea that he would somehow be in charge of this critical function must give our adversaries in Moscow and Beijing great reassurance,” he continued.
Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump applauds as he leaves the stage after speaking alongside former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard during a rally on August 29, 2024 in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images
But in their criticism of Gabbard, some Democrats have made their own baseless claims.
Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida sparked backlash after she said in a televised appearance on Friday that Gabbard was a “Russian asset” who would be “basically a direct line to our enemies.”
In 2019, Hillary Clinton suggested, without offering any evidence, that the Russians were “grooming” Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate for president in order to ruin the Democrats’ chances of winning the White House. Gabbard denied the allegations and sued Clinton for defamation, but later settled.
If Gabbard ultimately becomes director of national intelligence, she will oversee 18 U.S. intelligence agencies and play an important role in determining what material gets into the president’s daily briefings.
He is expected to face a confirmation battle in the Senate, but some black Republicans in the chamber have expressed lukewarm support for his nomination.
“Even though we have differences on foreign policy, I think he’s very bright and capable,” GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in an X message on Wednesday.
Tulsi Gabbard speaks in front of former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on October 27, 2024 in New York.
Alex Brandon/AP
Gabbard has taken other controversial positions on foreign policy issues. In 2017, he traveled to Syria to meet with authoritarian leader Bashar al-Assad, whose government has carried out numerous deadly attacks on Syrian civilians throughout the country’s civil war, according to the UN.
The congressman at the time said after meeting with al-Assad that he was not an enemy of the US and was opposed to American intervention in the conflict.
In 2015, Gabbard also defended Russian airstrikes in Syria at the behest of the Assad regime, which Moscow said were aimed at terrorist targets, when in reality they focused on Syrian opposition strongholds.
Gabbard has taken a much softer approach to China than the president-elect, urging Trump to end the trade war with Beijing in 2019 and expressing opposition to Japan’s remilitarization in response to China’s strategic challenge.
