By New York Post (Politics) | Created at 2025-01-31 00:01:06 | Updated at 2025-01-31 03:02:01
3 hours ago
Aspiring spy boss Tulsi Gabbard defended most of her controversial foreign policy takes during a lively Senate hearing Thursday, including her meeting with former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her prior doubts about the legitimacy of US intelligence on his use of chemical weapons against his own people.
Despite the Hawaiian’s efforts to put jittery Republican senators at ease, it quickly became apparent that some of them were struggling to get past their hesitation to confirm her.
“Yes,” Gabbard, 43, replied when asked by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) whether her now-infamous 2017 trip to Syria and Lebanon, during which she met the since-deposed Assad, was “good judgment.”
“I believe that leaders, whether you be in Congress or the president of the United States, can benefit greatly by going and engaging, boots on the ground, learning and listening and meeting directly with people, whether they be adversaries or friends.”
Gabbard, then a Democratic congresswoman, claimed that she grilled Assad “about his own regime’s actions, the use of chemical weapons, and the brutal tactics that were being used against his own people.”
She said Thursday that while “I shed no tears for the fall of the Assad regime … today we have an Islamist extremist who is now in charge of Syria … who danced on the streets to celebrate the 9/11 attack.”
Gabbard had also openly questioned assessments from the US intelligence community that the Damascus regime was behind a series of chemical attacks beginning in the fall of 2012.
“My fear was a repeat of the deployment of another half a million soldiers, like we saw in Iraq, towards what was the Obama administration’s goal, which was regime change in Syria,” Gabbard contended, going on to raise concerns that some of the intel cited by the West may have come from regions of Syria that had been under the control of Al Qaeda.
“What I have seen makes it clear that at the same time that you were skeptical of our intelligence community’s assessments, you would not apply the same skepticism to information that came from sympathizers of … Assad,” said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), summing up a portion of the bipartisan objections to Gabbard.
Some Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, such as Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), sympathized with the nominee’s stances on privacy issues, while Republicans grilled Gabbard on the status of notorious National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
Before the hearing, Snowden, now living in Russia, took to social media and advised Gabbard to “disown all prior support for whistleblowers as a condition of confirmation.”
“It would befit you and be helpful to the way you are perceived by members of the intelligence committee if you at least acknowledge that the greatest whistleblower in American security, so-called, harmed national security,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) told Gabbard.
Gabbard denied having contact with Snowden, who later made numerous favorable X posts about her performance at the hearing.
“Was Edward Snowden a traitor?” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) asked Gabbard point-blank.
The aspiring director of national intelligence (DNI) dodged that question, prompting a follow-up from Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who grew visibly perturbed at the lack of a clear response.
“This is when the rubber hits the road; this is not a moment for social media,” Bennet fumed. “This is when you need to answer the question of the people whose votes you are asking for.”
Gabbard again demurred, insisting that the main goal of her tenure would be to prevent “another Snowden-like leak.”
“I do not agree with or support all of the information and intelligence that he released, nor the way in which he did it,” she explained at one point, also promising that she would not push for a pardon of Snowden while affirming her belief that he “broke the law.”
Gabbard also tried to explain her newfound support of FISA Section 702, which allows the warrantless surveillance of foreign terror suspects.
The nominee told Sen. Tedd Budd (R-NC) her earlier misgivings about the program “were centered around the lack of safeguards to protect Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights and civil liberties as it pertains to searching of US persons with that incidental collection that occurs.”
“The national security capability that is provided by Section 702 that enables this foreign surveillance on non-US persons overseas is critical, period,” she stressed.
Gabbard also affirmed that Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin started the bloody war in Ukraine, despite her past criticisms of US policy to assist Kyiv.
Strikingly, she also walked back her past criticism of Trump’s January 2020 strike to take out Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
“My concerns [at the time] were that that may be an escalatory action,” Gabbard reflected. “President Trump was right. There was no escalation beyond that. And his policies towards Iran turned out to be very effective for national security.
“I have been consistent [that] I didn’t have access to all of the information behind that strike, at the time.”
Gabbard is widely seen as the Trump nominee whose appointment is most likely to be rejected by the Senate, which has done so just nine times in its 236-year history.
“I want to warn the American people who are watching at home, you may hear lies and smears in this hearing that will challenge my loyalty to and my love for our country,” Gabbard warned in her opening statement.
“The fact is, what truly unsettles my political opponents is I refuse to be their puppet. I have no love for Assad or [Libya’s Moammar] Khadafy or any dictator.
“I just hate Al Qaeda.”
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) later dubbed Gabbard “clean as a whistle” and made clear at the end of the hearing that he wanted to advance her to a full Senate vote “as soon as possible.”
