Gabbard Vows ‘to End the Weaponization, Politicization of Intelligence Community’

Tulsi Gabbard faced hard questions on Thursday during her Senate committee confirmation hearing to be director of national intelligence. 

In his opening remarks, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., chairman of the Intelligence Committee, issued a strong statement of support for Gabbard, who formerly served as a Democrat congresswoman representing Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District. He highlighted how, just like Gabbard, he had opposed regime change in Egypt and Libya. 

Cotton noted that Gabbard had undergone five FBI background checks, and that he had recently looked at all 300 pages of her most recent background check.

He also harshly criticized unsuccessful 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for calling Gabbard an asset of a foreign government, noting that Gabbard had faithfully served for two decades in the U.S. Army. Gabbard remains an officer in the Army Reserves.

‘Weaponization, Politicization of Intelligence Community’

In her opening statement, Gabbard pledged to end what she viewed as instances of abuse by the intelligence agencies that she would oversee if confirmed.

Gabbard asserted that trust in the intelligence community was at an all-time low, and that the invasion of Iraq was based on a failure in intelligence. She also outlined how members of the Senate Intelligence Committee had expressed to her concern over recent failures of American intelligence-gathering and a lack of responsiveness to congressional requests for information. 

Discussing the threat of “faulty, inadequate, or weaponized intelligence,” Gabbard decried the espionage against Carter Page, who was a campaign adviser to President Donald Trump during his first presidential campaign; the FBI’s surveillance of traditionalist Catholics as terrorist threats; and the mass collection of Americans’ internet records.

“President Trump’s reelection is a clear mandate from the American people to break this cycle of failure, end the weaponization and politicization of the intelligence community, and begin to restore trust in those who’ve been charged with the critical task of securing our nation,” Gabbard said.

She added that she would “work to rebuild trust through transparency and accountability.”

“This is a national security imperative,” Gabbard said. 

Pressed on Snowden

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., went on offense early on in the hearing, criticizing Gabbard for what he saw as sympathy for Edward Snowden. In 2013, Snowden, who now has Russian citizenship and resides there, leaked a huge number of classified documents.

“I’m making myself very clear,” Gabbard told Warner. “Edward Snowden broke the law. He released information about the United States government’s illegal activities.”

Gabbard also stated that Snowden had exposed unlawful and unconstitutional surveillance of Americans by the United States government. 

When Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine—who voted against Pete Hegseth’s confirmation as defense secretary—asked Gabbard if she would support clemency or a pardon for Snowden, the former Hawaiian congresswoman replied that she would not. 

“If confirmed as director of national intelligence, I will be tasked with protecting our nation’s secrets, and I have four immediate steps that I would take to prevent another Snowden-like leak.”

Reforming Intel Community, Removing Partisanship

Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., questioned Gabbard on the need to depoliticize the intel community’s briefing of the president and Congress.

Gabbard responded that her focus was “ensuring that politics, biases, or personal views are checked at the door.”

Earlier in the hearing, Gabbard had suggested politicization of the intelligence community had affected her personally. The former congresswoman claimed that in July she had been placed on a secret domestic terrorist watchlist dubbed “Quiet Skies” just 24 hours after criticizing the nomination of Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for president.

“I would lead by example by doing it myself and ensuring that that intelligence analysis and reporting meets the objective that the president and Congress requires, which is no politics,” she said.

Gabbard also promised to reduce bloat and redundancies in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. 

FISA and Surveillance Without Warrants

Concerns about warrantless surveillance were a key topic Republicans questioned Gabbard on.

Specifically, Republican senators asked Gabbard about Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is used by the United States government to surveil foreign nationals outside the United States without a warrant.

There have been worries for several years that the section can be used to incidentally collect data on American citizens, and abuses of foreign surveillance data by employees of the FBI have been reported. Warrantless surveillance of Americans is prohibited by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As some senators mentioned during the hearing, about 60% of the information in the president’s daily briefing comes from intelligence derived from Section 702. 

While Gabbard was still serving in the House of Representatives in 2020, she had proposed legislation that would have repealed Section 702. At the hearing, Gabbard said her proposal in Congress was done to “draw attention to the egregious civil liberties violations that were occurring at that time.” She reiterated during the hearing that amendments to the law since 2020 had addressed her concerns. 

Meetings With Assad

Some of the harshest attacks in the hearing related to Gabbard’s controversial meeting with then-Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, who used chemical weapons against his countrymen.

Gabbard stood strong, telling her detractors that the meeting was for diplomatic purposes, and that she did not think the current regime that replaced Assad in Syria was a preferable alternative.

“I shed no tears for the fall of the Assad regime, but today we have an Islamist extremist who’s now in charge of Syria … who danced on the streets to celebrate the 9/11 attack,” said Gabbard.

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