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Summary

Democratic senators have raised concerns over Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as Director of National Intelligence, citing her past meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and her embrace of Russian talking points.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Gabbard shared a video echoing a false Kremlin claim that the U.S. was funding biological weapons labs in Ukraine.

A former Democratic congresswoman and critic of U.S. foreign policy, Gabbard recently joined the Republican Party and would now oversee 18 intelligence agencies and prepare the President’s Daily Brief.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    513·
    21 days ago

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/tulsi-gabbard-dni-intelligence-trump-appointment/

    Gabbard, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, is a one-time middle-of-the-road Democratic member of Congress who has evolved into a Trump supporter. She moved leftward in 2016—endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders that year—and ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020 on a campaign that blasted the Democratic foreign policy establishment, before endorsing Trump this year.

    Along the way, Gabbard has demonstrated excessive credulity about claims of autocrats hostile to the United States. In 2017, she drew fire for meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a secret trip to Syria. Later that year, she said she was skeptical of US intelligence findings that led then–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to say US officials had “a very high level of confidence” that chemical weapons attacks that killed dozens of people in Syria “were carried out by aircraft” under Assad’s direction.

    Gabbard’s position aligned with arguments from Russian officials, who provided key backing to Assad and argued that the 2017 attack was staged by agents of the United Kingdom.

    Gabbard again bolstered Russian propaganda in 2022, when she tweeted a video repeating Kremlin claims that US-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons. The Russian claims appeared to be largely made-up justifications for Russia invading its neighbor.

    Gabbard’s comments drew widespread criticism. “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) tweeted at the time. “Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.”