WASHINGTON — Critics frightened about potential intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard’s reward for overseas adversaries possible have an insurmountable drawback: a soon-to-be commander in chief who shares the identical and much more excessive views.
The previous Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, now a Republican whom President-elect Donald Trump has picked as his director of nationwide intelligence, is underneath hearth from each events for her years of sympathetic feedback about Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and his allies, together with lately deposed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
“I’ve got a lot of questions about Ms. Gabbard. But that’s why we have an advise and consent process, that’s why we have these hearings,” Virginia’s Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and can change into the rating Democrat within the new Congress, informed reporters final month. “Some of these claims of her ties to these adversaries like Russia and Syria, there’s got to be both knowledge and explanation of that.”
Trump’s personal former nationwide safety adviser, John Bolton, mentioned Gabbard’s appointment would please America’s foes. “Her judgment is nonexistent, and the idea that somehow she would be put in charge of this critical function should be giving our adversaries in Moscow and Beijing a lot of relief,” he informed CNN.
Trump aides didn’t reply to HuffPost’s queries about Gabbard.
Since Republicans gained 4 Senate seats in final month’s election to take management of the chamber and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance is out there to solid a possible tie-breaking vote, Trump can afford to lose not more than three GOP senators and nonetheless win Gabbard’s affirmation.
North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis mentioned Gabbard ought to be ready for a grilling. “There’s going to be tough questions that are asked, and there should be good answers for them,” he mentioned. “That’s how this place works around here, the nominees just have to be prepared to answer questions to the satisfaction of the committee.”
South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham met with Gabbard on Monday and mentioned afterward he nonetheless has extra to listen to from her.
“I don’t think she’s a Russian agent. She may have a different view of foreign policy than I do; that’s not disqualifying,” the Republican mentioned, declaring that Gabbard didn’t assist america’ 2020 assassination of Iranian navy chief Qasem Soleimani. “I’m going to ask her some questions about her thinking — she objected to killing Soleimani.”
AP Picture/Julia Demaree Nikhinson
At problem are Gabbard’s statements over the previous decade which have aligned with propaganda being pushed by Putin’s Russia. In 2015, after Putin started bombing hospitals in Syria to assist Assad put down a riot towards his autocratic rule, Gabbard equated these combating Assad with the terrorists who took down the World Commerce Heart and attacked the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won’t bomb them in Syria. Putin did,” she wrote in a social media submit.
That very same 12 months, in a go to to the Syrian border in her position as a member of the Home Armed Providers Committee, she questioned three younger women who suffered extreme burns in a kind of air raids, asking how they knew it was Assad or Russia that had bombed them, and never Islamic State terrorists — regardless that ISIS by no means had any airplanes.
Two years later, she visited Assad personally, whilst america authorities continued to sentence him for utilizing chemical weapons on his personal residents. “Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country,” Gabbard mentioned, amplifying a Russian declare that the U.S. had instigated the rebellion towards Assad.
Extra lately, she has questioned U.S. assist for Ukraine’s efforts to repel the invasion Putin launched to take over his neighbor. In a video she posted to social media in 2022, she repeated the conspiracy principle being superior by Russia that america was secretly funding bioweapons labs in Ukraine.
Adam Schiff, the previous Home intelligence chair and soon-to-be Democratic senator from California, posted a press release quickly after Trump introduced Gabbard’s appointment: “Tulsi Gabbard combines a lack of experience with poor judgment, not a good combination in someone who would lead our intelligence agencies. If our allies don’t believe she can be trusted with intelligence, they will stop sharing. And the American people will be less safe.”
But whereas Gabbard’s statements and views are alarming a bipartisan array of intelligence consultants, they’re in step with these of Trump, who has been at odds with American intelligence businesses since they concluded in 2016 that Russia had helped him win the presidency that 12 months over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Trump famously declared, in a summit he staged with Putin in Helsinki in 2018, that he believed Putin over his personal intelligence businesses on the matter of the 2016 election. He quickly afterward started attempting to show a associated conspiracy principle, additionally disseminated by Russia, that it was Ukraine that had tried to assist Clinton win in 2016. Trump’s efforts alongside these strains finally led to his first impeachment when he tried to extort Ukraine’s chief into saying an investigation into Joe Biden, the Democrat Trump most feared as a 2020 opponent.
When Putin invaded Ukraine in early 2022, Trump referred to as him a “genius” for doing so, whilst america and its NATO allies rallied behind Ukraine.
In any occasion, if Trump’s transition group is frightened about Gabbard’s historical past of repeating Russian conspiracy theories, it exhibits no signal of it. On Monday, it launched a letter signed by veterans who assist Gabbard.
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Among the many signatories: Michael Flynn, a hero of the pro-Trump QAnon cult, and Jack Posobiec, a right-wing agitator finest identified for pushing the QAnon conspiracy principle {that a} Washington, D.C., pizzeria was truly a headquarters for satanic baby homicide.
