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| Russia and Israel got their stooge. |
The Senate confirmed former Hawai'ian lawmaker and Fox commentator Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence. The controversial nominee was a former Democratic House member who betrayed the party one too many times.
Gabbard is the first Samoan woman to hold this position. She was born in American Samoa to an American father and an American Samoan mother. Her mother has U.S. National status which means she has to take a full citizenship test to become an American citizen.
Gabbard was a deputy Democratic National Committee chairwoman who endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016 to spurn Hillary Clinton. Clinton lost to Trump in 2016.
Gabbard tried to get a role in President Donald J. Trump's first term.
Gabbard ran for president in 2020 and was criticized by Clinton as a "agent of the Kremlin" and the choice of Vladimir Putin. Gabbard would foolishly sue Clinton.
She would drop her lawsuit.
Former vice president Kamala Harris, then presidential candidate in 2020 called out Gabbard for backing Bashir al-Assad. She said that Gabbard was two faced for criticizing then president Barack Obama and Democratic leaders. Harris also bucked Gabbard and former president, then candidate Joe Biden for harbored bigotries.
Gabbard won support from the fringe right and some even urged her to run third party to help Donald J. Trump win a second term. She backed off and endorsed Biden for president.
In her final term as a Hawai'ian lawmaker, she made frequent appearances on Fox and especially Tucker Carlson. Some Democrats were mounting a primary challenge against her. Gabbard eventually retired rather than face a bitter defeat.
Gabbard would soon start betraying the Democrats by criticizing the LGBTQ community for allowing transgender women play sports. She started calling Muslims who protest America's support for Israel, "radical Islamic terrorists."
Gabbard became the favorite of Fox. As a Democrat calling out Biden for inflation, his support for Ukraine and the party being too far left. She started guest hosting for Carlson, Sean "Softball" Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters.
When she got hired to Fox, Gabbard announces she will be an independent.
Then she secretly met with Trump, Steve Bannon and Roger Stone in doing a smear campaign against Biden and Harris.
Upon her independent call she would endorse Trump and Republicans in 2024.
This confirmation makes Gabbard the second nominee who was confirmed on a slim majority vote.
Republicans who had initially questioned her experience and judgment fell in line behind her nomination.
Gabbard is an unconventional pick to oversee and coordinate the country’s 18 intelligence agencies, given her past comments sympathetic to Russia, a meeting she held with now-deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and her previous support for government leaker Edward Snowden.
A military veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, Gabbard was confirmed on Wednesday by a 52-48 vote, with the Senate’s slim Republican majority beating back Democratic opposition. The only “no’ vote from a Republican came from Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
She is the latest high-ranking nominee to win Senate confirmation as the new administration works to reshape vast portions of the federal government, including the intelligence apparatus.
Staffers at the CIA and other intelligence agencies have received buyout offers, while lawmakers and security experts have raised concerns about Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency accessing databases containing information about intelligence operations.
Speaking after she was sworn in at the White House, Gabbard promised to work to “refocus” the intelligence community in line with Trump’s vision.
“Unfortunately, the American people have very little trust in the intelligence community, largely because they’ve seen the weaponization and politicization of an entity that is supposed to be purely focused on ensuring our national security,” Gabbard said.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created to address intelligence failures exposed by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Republicans have increasingly criticized the office, saying it has grown too large and politicized. Trump himself has long viewed the nation’s intelligence services with suspicion.
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| Trump congratulated Gabbard. |
GOP senators who had expressed concerns about Gabbard’s stance on Snowden, Syria and Russia said they were won over by her promise to refocus on the office’s core missions: coordinating federal intelligence work and serving as the president’s chief intelligence adviser.
“While I continue to have concerns about certain positions she has previously taken, I appreciate her commitment to rein in the outsized scope of the agency,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) adding that Gabbard will bring “independent thinking” to the job.
McConnell, the former GOP leader, said in a statement after the vote that in his assessment, Gabbard brings “unnecessary risk” to the position.
“The nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the President receives are tainted by a Director of National Intelligence with a history of alarming lapses in judgment,” McConnell said.
At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “I think we’re greatly disappointed in any Republican who chooses willfully to vote against the president’s exceptionally qualified nominees.”
McConnell also voted against confirming Pete Hegseth for defense secretary.
Democrats noted that Gabbard had no experience working for an intelligence agency and they said her past stances on Russia, Syria and Snowden were disqualifying. They also questioned whether she would stand up to Trump if necessary and could maintain vital intelligence sharing with American allies.
“We simply cannot in good conscience trust our most classified secrets to someone who echoes Russian propaganda and falls for conspiracy theories,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who accused Republicans of buckling under pressure from Trump and Musk.
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“Is Ms. Gabbard really who Republicans want to lead intelligence agencies? I’ll bet not,” Schumer said.
Until GOP support fell into place, it was unclear whether Gabbard’s nomination would succeed. Given the 53-47 split in the Senate, Gabbard needed virtually all Republicans to vote “yes.”
Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base has pressured senators to support Trump’s nominees, and Elon Musk, the president’s ally, took to social media recently to brand Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., as a “deep-state puppet.” Young had raised concerns about Gabbard but announced his support after speaking with Musk. The post was deleted after they spoke, and Musk later called Young an ally.
At Gabbard’s swearing-in ceremony Trump called her a “courageous and often lonely voice” and urged her to “just stay the way you are.”
“She’ll be clear-eyed and she’ll be focused on the threat of radical Islamic terrorism and lots of other threats too, threats from within,” Trump said.
Gabbard 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 experience and has never run a government agency or department.
Gabbard’s past praise of Snowden drew particularly harsh questions during her confirmation hearing. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, fled to Russia after he was charged with revealing classified information about U.S. surveillance programs.
Gabbard said that while Snowden disclosed important facts about such programs that she believes are unconstitutional, he violated rules about protecting classified secrets. “Edward Snowden broke the law,” she said.
Gabbard’s 2017 visit with Assad was another flashpoint. He was recently deposed 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 there were more questions when she said she was skeptical that Assad had used such weapons.
Gabbard defended her meeting with Assad, saying she used the opportunity to press the Syrian leader on his human rights record.
“I asked him tough questions about his own regime’s actions,” Gabbard said.
She also has repeatedly echoed Russian propaganda used to justify the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. In the past, she opposed a key U.S. surveillance program known as Section 702, which allows authorities to collect the communications of suspected terrorists overseas.
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