[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 11, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S847-S855]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Nomination of Tulsi Gabbard
Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of
former Representative Tulsi Gabbard to serve as our Nation's Director
of National Intelligence.
Intelligence is absolutely fundamental to our national security. Our
intelligence community, spread out all across the Federal Government,
has built the world's greatest network of information gathering and
analysis. This information keeps us and our community safe by providing
the people who make policy decisions with a full picture to understand
the current as well as potential threats to our national security, from
terrorism risks to our homeland to emerging conflicts across the globe.
Spearheaded by the Director of National Intelligence, the U.S.
intelligence community is responsible for monitoring terrorist
activities, tracking foreign military capabilities, and even
intercepting nefarious cyber attacks.
The courageous men and women in this community, stationed both here
as
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well as abroad, put their lives on the line to identify and neutralize
espionage efforts against Americans by our foreign adversaries.
Their work is absolutely critical, particularly in today's modern
digital era where information is power. But the foundation of
intelligence is trust.
We must trust that our intelligence experts are providing completely
unbiased, fact-driven analysis of the intelligence that our Agencies
are collecting. Our experts must trust their ability to pursue
intelligence that keeps Americans safe, wherever it may lead, without
fear that discovery of the wrong issue might result in the end of their
career. Our intelligence Agencies must trust that government officials
will protect their sources and their methods to ensure that critical
missions and safety of Americans all across the globe are not placed
into jeopardy.
Unfortunately, I do not believe that Tulsi Gabbard has the
qualifications--nor has she earned our trust--to serve as Director of
National Intelligence. She has spread conspiracy theories peddled by
our adversaries. She claimed that those who were investigating domestic
terrorism and the deadly January 6 insurrection were ``domestic
enemies''--more dangerous than the individuals who violently stormed
the U.S. Capitol, attacked law enforcement officers, and tried to
overturn a free and fair election.
She cannot differentiate between our adversaries and our allies,
between those who seek to harm our country and those who seek to defend
it. Time and time again, Ms. Gabbard has proven that she does not hold
the judgment to serve as the leader of our intelligence community.
Let's start with Russia. Start with Russia. As we know, Russia
engaged in a widespread disinformation campaign before its deadly
invasion of Ukraine in an attempt to justify its actions and manipulate
public opinion. Russia actually claimed that the United States was to
blame for the war for failing to recognize Russia's ``legitimate''
security concerns about Ukraine's accession to NATO. Tulsi Gabbard
agrees with Putin and Russia. She said that the United States was
entirely to blame for the war in Ukraine. Russian propaganda efforts
also push lies that the United States was supporting bioweapons labs in
Ukraine--a claim, by the way, that has been debunked by Ukraine's
Government, the U.S. Government, news organizations, and independent
researchers around the world. But Ms. Gabbard posted on her social
media, in 2022, supporting this conspiracy and accusing the Biden-
Harris administration of a coverup.
Former Republican U.S. Senator Mitt Romney called Ms. Gabbard's post
treasonous, saying she was ``parroting fake Russian propaganda.''
So now let's talk about Syria.
Tulsi Gabbard has a long history defending former Syrian ruler Bashar
al-Assad. In 2015, she even introduced a bill to end U.S. support to
the opposition to the Assad regime. She didn't think the opposition to
Assad, who is responsible for crimes against humanity and the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of his own people, should be supported.
Not only did she oppose the support, Gabbard then traveled to Syria
and met with Assad in 2017. Gabbard tried to justify her meeting, going
as far as to say that Assad is not the enemy of the United States.
And despite U.S. intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard continued to turn a
blind eye to Assad's horrific use of chemical weapons on civilians,
claiming there was no real evidence linking this regime to those
attacks, even though the intelligence community under the first Trump
administration attributed these chemical attacks to the Assad regime.
Ms. Gabbard has promised to ``end the politicization of the
intelligence community,'' but what we have seen in just the last few
weeks from the administration--in the name of freeing our government
from politicization and weaponization--should certainly give us pause.
This administration has fired dozens of prosecutors in a matter of
days for doing their duty to provide justice on criminal cases stemming
from the January 6 attack on our Nation's Capitol. The administration
has also fired most of the senior leaders of the FBI and is trying to
go after every single FBI agent who was involved investigating January
6, even if they were just doing their job as ordered by their
superiors.
Let's be clear. January 6 was an attack on our Nation, our
Constitution, and our democracy.
But to be a part of the Trump administration, you have to show
absolute loyalty to him over anything else. Don't worry about facts;
just show loyalty. And don't worry about the law; just show loyalty.
So this pattern certainly begs the question: With Ms. Gabbard at the
helm, will the intelligence analysts and operatives who worked on
investigations into January 6 or any other domestic terrorism plot--are
they now going to be fired as well? Will Ms. Gabbard follow the lead of
Trump's newly confirmed Attorney General and shut down U.S. efforts to
collect intelligence on malicious foreign influences from our
adversaries, like China and Russia? Will she penalize anyone who has
been responsible for tracking our adversaries' misinformation and
disinformation campaigns that target our elections? Will she stand up
to President Trump if he seeks to use the powers of the U.S.
intelligence community against the American people? Will individuals in
the intelligence community who disagree with her views on Russia,
Syria, or the threats of chemical and biological weapons be in danger
of censorship or, worse, even retribution?
We have no reason--no reason--to trust that Ms. Gabbard will not
simply follow the lead of others in this administration and oust those
who do their jobs to serve all the American people and not just Donald
Trump.
But in addition to this questionable lack of judgment on who our
Nation's enemies are, Tulsi Gabbard is simply, simply, unqualified.
Tulsi Gabbard does not have the extensive experience needed to oversee
this highly complex network of intelligence operatives and analysts--
experience that Directors of National Intelligence, until this point,
have all possessed because it is understood how essential this position
is and why these qualifications are critical.
There is broad, bipartisan consensus that we are facing one of the
most dangerous times in American history. Threats from our adversaries,
like the Chinese and Russian Governments, continue to grow and evolve
with every passing minute. We need the person leading our intelligence
community to be the most qualified candidate available. This is the
person briefing our senior leaders, all the way up to the Commander in
Chief, on the real threats that face our Nation each and every day.
This is the person tasked with protecting our vast network of sources
and highly classified methods of collecting information.
We need someone we can trust to safeguard the tools that our
intelligence Agencies need to access the darkest corners of the world,
but also someone with the knowledge and understanding of this community
to protect the brave Americans who are risking their lives gathering
this information and intelligence firsthand, on the frontlines.
We need someone who our allies will trust to share their own
intelligence, to help protect our people and our interest, because
without America's utmost confidence in Ms. Gabbard's ability to do this
job, where will that leave us as a country? It will leave us in the
dark, vulnerable against our adversaries. It will make our allies
question whether or not they should share their intelligence with us
because they do not know whether the head of our intelligence community
will actually share that information with our adversaries instead of
our allies. It will leave us with an intelligence community that is
afraid to speak truth to power, or even just do their jobs for fear of
offending the Trump administration and then getting fired.
We are in unprecedented times with an administration that has shown
that it is willing to break the law in order to break our government.
We are in uncharted times, with an administration that would rather
target our institutions than protect our people.
We are in perilous times, with foreign adversaries waiting to pounce,
as the administration strips away the tools that we have used to
protect ourselves.
Our national security is on the line. We cannot destroy our
intelligence community and the progress that generations of Americans
have built to
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keep our country safe by confirming someone whom we cannot trust to act
in the United States' best interest or who simply lacks the necessary
experience to lead this critical organization. That is why I am voting
no on Ms. Gabbard's nomination, and I urge my colleagues to do the
same.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, almost 3 years ago, President
Vladimir Putin launched a massive, illegal ground invasion of Ukraine,
which has become the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since
World War II.
Now, I have stood up, again and again, with my fellow Senators--
leaders of both parties--and our allies across the world to condemn
Putin's war, which has killed thousands of civilians, including
hundreds of children, and left millions of Ukrainians displaced. It is
not a hard position to take.
But Tulsi Gabbard has repeatedly justified Putin's expansionist war.
She chose to blame the United States, our NATO allies, and even Ukraine
itself for Putin's war.
Now, Mr. Trump--excuse me; President Trump--wants Ms. Gabbard to be
the Director of National Intelligence. The day the war started, she
echoed Russian state media and said: The war could have been avoided if
the U.S. and NATO had acknowledged Russia's ``legitimate'' security
concerns.
She made baseless claims that Russia was justified in invading
Ukraine because the United States had secret biolabs there. Where did
she find that claim? It came directly from a Kremlin propaganda
website.
The Director of National Intelligence position was created after the
September 11 terrorist attacks to act as the principal adviser to the
President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security
Council on intelligence matters related to our national security.
It seems obvious to anyone who holds this position that they should
have extensive national security experience, something Ms. Gabbard
doesn't have. And somebody who holds this position should not be
parroting Russian talking points.
Now, I have worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make
sure that Putin is held accountable for the atrocities that have been
committed in Ukraine. It is shocking to me that we are on the cusp of
confirming a Director of National Intelligence who was so quick to
defend one of the United States' biggest adversaries.
Now, cozying up to Putin would be bad enough, but, unfortunately, he
is not the only autocrat that Ms. Gabbard has ties to. She also has an
alarming connection to the ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Assad was a ruthless dictator who engaged in human right abuses, and
that is a documented fact. But, inexplicably, Ms. Gabbard disputed
credible accusations that Assad used chemical weapons against his
citizens, and, worst of all, she actually chose to travel in her
personal capacity to Syria to meet with this dictator in person. All
the while, she repeatedly cast doubts on our intelligence community's
assessment of the extent of the horrors of Assad's regime.
Now, I understand the desire to seek out multiple points of view.
But, again and again, Ms. Gabbard has taken healthy skepticism too far,
suggesting to the American people that they can't trust our
intelligence while, instead, echoing Russian and Syrian disinformation.
That is just unacceptable.
President Trump claims that he wants to make America safe. He says he
wants to maintain American's standing in the world. He says he wants to
forge stronger ties with our allies.
Well, confirming Ms. Gabbard to be Director of National of
Intelligence is in opposition to those goals. The Director of National
Intelligence oversees 18 Agencies in the U.S. intelligence community,
including the CIA and the NSA. The Director has the legal authority to
direct intelligence gathering and choose which intelligence to share
with foreign Agencies.
As Director of National Intelligence, Ms. Gabbard would have access
to our most closely guarded secrets. She would know the identities of
the brave men and women who gather intelligence from our foreign
adversaries. There should be absolutely no question about the
trustworthiness or the judgment of our Director of National
Intelligence.
The Director of National Intelligence should not sympathize with
autocrats, blame our allies for wars of aggression, or parrot Kremlin
talking points. This is a low bar to clear.
I am here in the Senate to represent the people of Nevada. They are
relying on me to work to keep them and our community safe. And I tell
you what: I pledge to help keep Nevada safe by opposing Ms. Gabbard's
confirmation, and I hope my colleagues follow suit.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, every one of us remembers where we were
when the first plane struck the World Trade Center the morning of
September 11, 2001. On that day, we watched in horror as the North and
South Towers fell, terrifying debris clouds flooding the ground beneath
them. We witnessed the Pentagon, the heart of our national defense,
engulfed in flames as a hijacked plane crashed into it head-on, taking
the lives of all the people aboard that flight and over 125 employees
in the building itself. Our hearts broke as we saw yet another plane go
down in an open field in Pennsylvania, after brave Americans decided to
fight back and regain control of the aircraft before it reached its
intended target here in this very Capitol building.
From that day forward, we pledged to never forget the nearly 3,000
Americans who lost their lives that day and the thousands more who were
first responders that have died since. That pledge led us to
immediately establish a bipartisan commission devoted to understanding
how our Nation's intelligence Agencies could have left us vulnerable to
this attack.
And the 9/11 Commission discovered that our intelligence community
had received warnings about the dangers posed by al-Qaida but that a
systemic lack of communication and coordination between intelligence
Agencies that were effectively stovepiped off from one another had left
glaring blindspots at the highest levels of our government. And to fix
this, the Commission recommended that our government establish a new
Cabinet-level position called the Director of National Intelligence,
the DNI.
The DNI is specifically dedicated to coordinating all of our
intelligence-gathering operations that protect the safety and security
of the American people. For the last two decades, the Director of
National Intelligence has played a vital role in every administration
as the leader of our intelligence community overseen in coordinating 18
of our intelligence Agencies.
The Director of National Intelligence is also one of the main voices
that any President hears from, literally, each and every day. That is
because the DNI serves not only as the coordinator of our intelligence
community but as the compiler and presenter of the President's daily
brief. This is the daily high-level, highly classified briefing on the
most pressing and sensitive national security matters. This is where
all of our Presidents have gathered critical information needed to make
incredibly difficult military or foreign policy decisions. And it is
where our Presidents learn about potential threats from our
adversaries, from nonstate terrorist organizations, and to think
through how to combat those.
Put simply: Our national security depends on the person that we
entrust in that role.
In fact, we need to implicitly trust that this person is relying on
and providing incredible and accurate information so that our country's
Commander in Chief can make the decisions that will determine our
security as a nation. As a member of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence for the last 12 years, I do not say this lightly: I do not
believe that Ms. Gabbard has demonstrated the judgment to merit our
trust as Director of National Intelligence.
Ms. Gabbard's statements and actions leading up to and during the
confirmation process should make all of us question her qualifications
for this essential national security role, and they should make us
seriously question her basic judgment.
Time and again, Ms. Gabbard has elevated conspiracy theories,
parroted
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dictator's talking points, and repeatedly undermined our country's
national security.
Let me give you some specific examples of her statements and her
legislative track record. In 2017, while she was still serving in the
House of Representatives, Ms. Gabbard exercised seriously questionable
judgment in scheduling a foreign trip into Bashar al-Assad's pariah
state of Syria. This was after Assad had committed well-documented
crimes against his own people, including the use of chemical weapons,
and plummeted his country into a bloody civil war and devastating
humanitarian crisis.
Both before and after this trip, Ms. Gabbard undermined U.S.
intelligence and echoed Russian and Syrian disinformation regarding
Assad's use of chemical weapons on his own people. She has made
statements that appear to defend Assad.
For example, on February 6, 2019, Ms. Gabbard claimed in an interview
that:
Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria
does not pose a direct threat to the United States.
This is a shockingly narrow view of threats to U.S. national
security. During the course of Syria's civil war, Assad used chemical
weapons more than 300 times against his own people, killing and
wounding thousands. To this day, Syria has still not accounted for
this.
The U.S. has also described Syria as being in ``flagrant
noncompliance'' with the Chemical Weapons Convention. And there is no
question that Assad's regime posed a serious threat to international
peace and security.
It is mystifying to me how Ms. Gabbard could not understand this then
and still, apparently, doesn't understand it today.
Ms. Gabbard's 2020 Presidential campaign website stated that she
remains ``skeptical'' about two particular chemical weapons attacks in
Syria in 2017 and 2018. Her website wrongly stated that:
Both attacks occurred in towns under the control of al-
Qaeda-linked opposition forces. Both attacks resulted in
multiple civilian casualties, and both were immediately
blamed on the Assad government. However, there is evidence to
suggest that the attacks may have been staged by opposition
forces for the purpose of drawing the United States and the
West deeper into the war.
Of course, there never was such evidence.
Disturbingly, Ms. Gabbard decided to take the views of a discredited
professor, who was himself taken in by a Syrian Australian YouTube
influencer, that somehow the opposition forces had staged these
chemical weapons attacks.
As a Member of Congress, she could have taken the time to read the
summary of a declassified U.S. intelligence report released the week
after the 2017 attack, warning that claims shifting blame to rebel
groups reflected the ``false narratives'' spread by Syria and its
patron state, Russia.
Instead of looking to the intelligence community for answers, Gabbard
sought out fake intelligence, demonstrating her distrust in the very
intelligence Agencies that she could soon coordinate and oversee.
Her trip to Syria and her visit with Assad himself should be alarming
to all of us. Normally, if any Member of Congress goes on a foreign
fact-finding trip like this, we take precautions to not jeopardize our
vital national security interests. We coordinate with the State
Department. We coordinate with the Pentagon. We carefully account for
our schedules. And we sure as hell make sure we are not giving a
platform to state-sponsors of terrorism or terrorist leaders.
Ms. Gabbard did none of these things on this rogue trip into Assad's
Syria. In fact, she sat down for an unscheduled meeting with Assad
himself, not once but twice. She also met with the Grand Mufti of
Syria. The Grand Mufti was appointed in 2005 to be Syria's most senior
Sunni Muslim cleric. In 2011, he threatened Western countries,
including the United States, against taking military actions in Syria.
And he said in his speech:
I say to all of Europe, I say to America, we will set up
suicide bombers who are now in your countries.
During her confirmation hearing last month, I asked Ms. Gabbard
directly about this meeting with the Grand Mufti, Mr. Hassoun. She
claimed that this was the first she had ever heard about Mr. Hassoun's
threats to set up some suicide bombers to target America and our
European allies. However, records from her congressional office suggest
that almost immediately after returning from her controversial trip,
she was fully aware that she had met with a leader with direct ties to
terrorism.
According to recent reporting in the Washington Post that helped to
unearth these records right after she returned from Syria, Ms. Gabbard
and her congressional staff worked feverishly to account for her
meetings and official paperwork and to contain the political fallout.
In the documents that the Post reviewed, Ms. Gabbard's staff asked her:
Did you know you were meeting with people with direct ties
to terrorist organizations?
And her response in those documents:
Is this question re the Mufti?
I want to be clear, I am not suggesting that Ms. Gabbard endorsed or
endorses the despicable views or actions of this particular Syrian
terrorist leader. What I am suggesting is that Ms. Gabbard's false
denial to me in her confirmation hearing of any prior knowledge of this
terrorist leader whom she personally met with should be evidence enough
that we cannot trust her. And in the position that we are being asked
to confirm her for, telling the whole truth accurately is the whole
point.
On top of this, Ms. Gabbard has repeatedly made public statements
that echo Russian justification for Putin's unjustified, unprovoked
invasion of Ukraine. She has blamed our NATO allies for failing to
recognize Russia's ``legitimate security concerns.''
Those are literally her words. And she has amplified Russia and
Putin's disinformation campaigns alleging Ukraine's development of
bioweapons.
On February 23, 2022, Ms. Gabbard echoed Russian talking points
blaming Putin's invasion of Ukraine on the Biden administration.
Specifically, she tweeted:
This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if
Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate
security concerns regarding Ukraine's becoming a member of
NATO, which would mean U.S./NATO forces right on Russia's
border.
As my colleague Senator Bennet said so powerfully as he pointed out
at Ms. Gabbard's confirmation hearing, she sent this tweet at the very
moment that Russian tanks were rolling over Ukraine's border,
essentially saying that Vladimir Putin was justified invading the free
nation of Ukraine.
Then-Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair and now Secretary of
State Marco Rubio tweeted in response saying, this is ``simply not
true,'' noting that the week before the invasion, Putin once again
demanded NATO leave every country that joined after 1997, including
Bulgaria, Romania, and 12 others.
Ms. Gabbard chose not to listen to the vice chair of the Intelligence
Committee or the intelligence community itself, which had issued a
declassified threat assessment two weeks prior. Ms. Gabbard decided,
instead, to give the benefit of the doubt to Vladimir Putin. How can we
trust that she won't do that again?
Ms. Gabbard has also repeatedly praised Edward Snowden, a former
National Security Agency contractor who fled to China and then to
Russia after he was charged in 2013 with illegally exposing government
surveillance methods and classified information.
Ms. Gabbard has called him a ``brave whistleblower'' and even went so
far as to introduce legislation in the House of Representatives to
pardon Edward Snowden.
In 2016, the House Intelligence Committee issued a declassified,
scathing report that found Snowden leaked secrets that caused
tremendous damage to U.S. national security. This included leaking
secrets that protect American troops and American personnel overseas.
As that report made clear, Snowden was not a whistleblower; he was and
is a traitor to this Nation.
Ms. Gabbard and anyone who is interested in understanding the impact
of the leaked secrets has access to the declassified House Intelligence
Committee report and many other public sources of information
explaining the damage that Snowden caused to our national security. Yet
she continues to
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believe her own sources of information instead and to this day will not
say that Snowden betrayed this country.
Let me be clear. Edward Snowden is not a whistleblower; he is a
traitor. Ms. Gabbard should know this full well.
If we confirm her as our next Director of National Intelligence, Ms.
Gabbard will be responsible for transmitting lawful whistleblower
complaints to Congress. Her past statements on Snowden reveal a
deficient understanding of our Nation's whistleblower laws that should
be patently disqualifying for any Director of National Intelligence,
much less any national security appointee.
When my colleagues on the Intelligence Committee pressed Ms. Gabbard
during her confirmation hearing about whether her views had changed and
if she would acknowledge that Mr. Snowden were a traitor, she refused.
This is who we want to lead our intelligence community--someone who
outright refuses to condemn the actions of someone who jeopardized our
national security and put the lives of many members of our intelligence
community and national security community at risk? It is hard to
believe that we could be so reckless.
Finally, Ms. Gabbard has also advocated for a full repeal of section
702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Section 702
is one of our intelligence community's most important tools to
effectively fight terrorism, disrupt foreign cyber attacks, impede drug
trafficking, and protect U.S. troops serving abroad. Ms. Gabbard
introduced a bill in the House that would have completely repealed
section 702.
I will be the first to say that there are reforms to section 702 that
we should make to ensure that this law always focuses on the
communications of foreign targets abroad and is never inadvertently
used in a way that threatens the privacy of innocent Americans. In the
past, including just last year, I worked closely with my colleagues to
advance some of these reforms. A wholesale repeal of section 702,
however, is a wildly out-of-step and dangerous proposal.
Do we really want to confirm a Director of National Intelligence who
has advocated for the dismantling of such a foundational source of
foreign intelligence to protect our national security?
Any number of Ms. Gabbard's statements or actions would be
disqualifying for a nominee to lead our intelligence community and keep
our President accurately informed on pressing national security
matters. But I am not alone in raising concerns about this nomination.
As with many of President Trump's unqualified nominees, I have heard
from many New Mexicans--from many constituents in my own State--in
opposition to Ms. Gabbard's nomination, and I want to take a moment to
read to you from some of these letters that I have received.
Addie from Mountainair wrote to me to share her concern about Ms.
Gabbard's lack of experience to safeguard our Nation.
Addie said:
Running the DNI requires an unwavering commitment to
evidence-based decisionmaking, national security, and
independence from political or foreign influence. Tulsi
Gabbard has none of that. She is completely unfit for this
position.
A constituent and former intelligence officer from Santa Fe who
wished to remain anonymous is concerned how Ms. Gabbard's background
will impact operations critical to defending the United States from
foreign threats.
This individual told me:
As a retired intelligence officer, I urge you to do
everything you can to keep Tulsi Gabbard from becoming the
next [DNI]. Our allies will be reluctant to share
intelligence with her, as will our own intelligence
professionals, given her past support for Putin and for other
dictators. This is a job that needs to be filled by a serious
expert in intelligence and national security policy.
Katy from Tularosa is troubled by Ms. Gabbard's past association with
dictators and tyrants.
Katy wrote to me:
Tulsi Gabbard is known to have had sympathies for Russia
and has met with Bashar al-Assad, the unrepentant dictator
and war criminal. Her appointment threatens U.S. national
security.
Gary, also from Tularosa, is a retired intelligence officer. Gary is
worried about Ms. Gabbard's lack of national security experience and
how it will affect efforts to safeguard the United States.
Gary wrote:
As a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, I urge
you to use all [of] your influence to block Tulsi Gabbard as
the next Director of National Intelligence. She is absolutely
unqualified to assume this key position in the Intelligence
Community. To serve our nation, the DNI must have a deep
understanding of the strengths and limitations of the broad
array of civilian and military intelligence agencies. Only
then can the DNI lead effectively and offer unbiased counsel
to the President. Tulsi Gabbard has none of these
qualifications or experience.
Walter from Santa Fe is a veteran who served as an intelligence
officer as well. He wrote to me to convey his disgust with President
Trump in putting individual loyalty over national security with his
nomination.
Walter said:
I am appalled at President Trump putting individual loyalty
above competency in his appointments. While Ms. Gabbard is a
veteran, she lacks experience in the field of national
security, and her playing with conspiracy theories lacking
valid documentation raises serious questions about her
judgment.
I agree with my constituents in New Mexico.
Ms. Gabbard's poor judgment and lack of national security experience
make her wholly unqualified to serve as our next Director of National
Intelligence. Confirming her to this role will make our Nation less
safe. For all of these reasons, I will not be supporting Ms. Gabbard's
confirmation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here to speak in opposition to
the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to serve as the Director of National
Intelligence of the United States of America.
Setting aside her lack of qualifications and setting aside her rotten
judgment, her nomination strikes me as being part of a pattern of
unilateral disarmament by the Trump administration against Russia. One
can hazard as to why this is happening, but the fact that it is
happening seems hard to deny.
In November 2024, the Washington Post wrote this:
Gabbard's planned appointment as the head of national
intelligence elicited the most excitement in Russia because
she has been long regarded as a darling of the propagandist
Russian RT network, which amplified her sympathetic takes on
Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and Putin.
Russian state TV has called Ms. Gabbard ``our friend Tulsi.''
The Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published an op-ed, and it
was titled ``The CIA and FBI are trembling: Why Trump protege Tulsi
Gabbard will support Russia as head of National Intelligence.''
So the Russians are telling us pretty plain and simple: She is with
us.
If you look at some of her behavior particularly relevant to the DNI
position, she has constantly opposed section 702 of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is a key source of foreign
intelligence for our national security and which--I guess I would have
to say in this location--presumably is useful at getting intelligence
on Russia.
She is not alone. Over at the FBI, Trump's nominee for FBI Director,
Kash Patel, we just found out was paid $25,000 by a Russian filmmaker
with Kremlin ties to participate in a documentary attacking the FBI,
which is an adversary of Russia's, which spends a great deal of time
and effort keeping an eye on Russia's adverse intelligence activity in
the United States.
To make it worse, Kash Patel has said he wants to shut down what he
calls the intel shops--the part of the FBI that would go after Russian
intelligence operations and Russian criminal networks in the United
States. He has even said he wants to shut down the FBI building and run
everybody out into the field offices around the country. Well, guess
what takes place at FBI Headquarters? Our intelligence and
counterterrorism operations. If you empty that place out and you move
everything out to the field where people are doing regular criminal
work, it is another way of saying: We are going to shut down our
intelligence operations.
Just in the past week, since she has been in, Attorney General Bondi
has pulled down the DOJ Kleptocracy Asset
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Recovery Initiative, which has recovered billions of dollars in ill-
gotten gains from foreign kleptocrats--many Russian, many close to
Vladimir Putin. She shut down DOJ's Task Force KleptoCapture, which is
the entity that has been working to target the Russian oligarchs around
Putin, seize their assets that have been used to support Putin in his
illegal, brutal invasion of Ukraine, and take those assets and provide
them to the Ukrainians for their rebuilding and defense.
So a common theme here: Tulsi Gabbard wants to come in as ``our
friend Tulsi,'' according to Russian state TV, to have the CIA and FBI
trembling because she will support Russia. Kash Patel is coming into
the FBI, who takes money from a Kremlin-associated filmmaker and
promises to shut down or at least degrade our intelligence capabilities
within the FBI. And Attorney General Bondi is busy over at the DOJ
taking down the anti-kleptocracy initiatives that focus on Putin's
little gang of oligarchs who prop him up. It is three for three in
unilateral disarmament by the United States against Russia.
There is a little history here that is worth going back to in
evaluating all of this, and it includes that Russia interfered in the
2016 election through a Kremlin-linked internet research agency. There
has been a good deal of reporting on that, but since that reporting,
there has been a persistent, rightwing Trump narrative to pretend that
never existed, that there was no Trump-Russia thing, that Trump-Russia
was a hoax.
In fact, it was not a hoax. Trump-Russia was a thing, as a bipartisan
report from the Senate Intelligence Committee pointed out. That
bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Russian
President Putin had ordered the Russian effort to hack computer
networks and accounts that were affiliated with the Democratic Party
and that were affiliated with the Democratic National Committee and
that the purpose was to find and to leak information that would be
damaging to Hillary Clinton in that election.
Here is what the committee found. I quote the report, the bipartisan
report:
Moscow's intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish
an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the
Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican
nominee, and undermine the US democratic process.
That was the finding of the U.S. intelligence community as well as
the finding of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
It went on. You remember that famous meeting where Trump took the
Russian Ambassador and the Russian Foreign Minister right into the Oval
Office and divulged to them highly classified information--highly-
classified information--which caused U.S. officials to warn that
Trump's revelations jeopardized a key source of intelligence in the
Islamic State. They had to ping out to other intelligence Agencies and
to our officers in the field: Look out. Classified information has just
been given to these Putin officials to try to shore up and defend our
sources and methods.
The Mueller report went to exhaustive effort, with all of the support
of grand jury and senior FBI and Department of Justice officials, and
they concluded that the Trump campaign both knew of and welcomed the
Russian interference and expected to benefit from it.
It even talked about obstruction of justice by President Trump. But
what they concluded in talking about obstruction of justice by
President Trump is that he could not be indicted as a sitting President
and therefore it would not be fair to lay out the conclusion that he
had committed this crime because he wouldn't have a process by which to
acquit himself and to clear the accusation. But they certainly laid out
plenty of evidence that was suggestive that had he been an ordinary
individual, he would have been indicted, charged, and convicted for
obstruction of justice relating to this whole Trump-Russia saga.
Later, when he was asked about all this in a conversation about
Vladimir Putin, he said in November of 2017 about Putin--he said: Putin
``said he didn't meddle'' in the election. ``I asked him. . . . He said
he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they
are saying he did.''
Everybody in the intelligence community knew that he did, in fact, do
what they are saying he did, but Trump, for some reason, some
connection, some Trump-Russia connection, went with Putin rather than
the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence services.
The next year in Helsinki, Trump met privately with Putin for 2
hours. We don't know what happened because they just met with their
interpreters. Then they went out for a news conference, and there
again, standing right next to Putin, he sided with him over our own
intelligence Agencies. But the meddling was real, the meddling was
documented, and the Mueller report helped document the meddling.
If you go into the details, you see the subplots. Paul Manafort was
Trump's 2016 campaign chairman. He was meeting regularly, communicating
regularly with a Russian intelligence officer named Konstantin Kilimnik
and with a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska through the campaign.
The Senate Intelligence Committee's bipartisan report found that on
numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal campaign
information with Kilimnik. This did not end well for Paul Manafort; he
was indicted by a Federal grand jury for the crime of conspiracy
against the United States, convicted, and sentenced to more than 7
years in prison--oh, except that Trump pardoned Manafort in late 2020.
There was the infamous Trump Tower meeting in which Donald Trump,
Jr., the same Paul Manafort, and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with
Russian billionaire Emin Agalarov and a Russian lawyer connected to the
Kremlin right in Trump Tower. The meeting came about because Donald
Trump, Jr., had been told by a contact that the Russian Government
wanted to offer--and I am quoting here--``official documents and
information that would incriminate Hillary.'' Official documents and
information from the Russian Government that would incriminate Hillary.
The response:
If it's what you say I love it.
They went ahead to the meeting. Clearly, the Trump campaign's purpose
for that meeting was to obtain from Russia incriminating information on
Clinton to influence the election.
The special counsel decided not to prosecute the attendees in part
because it couldn't determine that that information would actually have
been determinative because it related to orphans, and what didn't
connect with the Trump attendees at that meeting was that the
interruption of the orphans being delivered to the United States for
parents who wanted to adopt them was the response to sanctions against
oligarchs and people around Putin, and this was an effort to get the
sanctions lifted.
If you could crack the code, you would know that that is what the
orphans conversation was about, because that is why the orphans
blockade had been set up.
Ultimately, Russia did, in fact, hack emails--both from the DNC and
from the Clinton campaign chair. Russian intelligence got their hands
on those documents.
Here is what the Intelligence Committee wrote about that:
Trump and senior Campaign officials sought to obtain
advanced information about WikiLeaks' planned releases
through Roger Stone. At their direction, Stone took action to
gain inside knowledge for the Campaign and shared his
purported knowledge directly with Trump and senior Campaign
officials on multiple occasions.
This wasn't just a one-off; this was information being channeled
through Roger Stone to the Trump campaign. It didn't end well for
Stone. He was indicted and convicted on charges of lying to Congress
about what he and then-Candidate Donald Trump knew about Russian
efforts to discredit Hillary Clinton's campaign and witness tampering
and obstruction.
On we go to Carter Page, also associated with the campaign, who
traveled to Moscow in that timeframe--July 2016--to deliver a
commencement speech while working for the campaign. Russia's Deputy
Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich there expressed ``strong support for
Mr. Trump''--``strong support for Mr. Trump and a desire to work
together.''
Another campaign operative, George Papadopoulos--same year, May--was
[[Page S853]]
traveling and told the Greek Foreign Minister that the Russians have
``dirt'' on Hillary Clinton.
So you have all these pieces coming together about the Russians
seeking dirt on Hillary Clinton, getting it, leaking it through
WikiLeaks, and constantly having a back channel through members of the
Trump campaign.
It didn't end well for Papadopoulos either. He was arrested for lying
to FBI investigators and pleaded guilty. And, of course, Trump pardoned
him too. Trying to cover up his traces.
Michael Flynn in 2015 delivered remarks at a Moscow gala honoring
Russia Today, RT, the same organization that Tulsi Gabbard was the
darling of. He was seated at the gala next to Putin--next to Putin. He
was paid $33,750 from RT--whose darling Tulsi Gabbard was--for this one
speech. He didn't correctly report the payment. He ended up being paid
more than $67,000 by Russian companies before the 2016 Presidential
election.
It didn't end well for him either. He lied to Vice President Pence
and to the FBI about communications he was having with Russian
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions imposed by the Obama
administration while President Obama was in office. Yes, the sanctions
related to the orphans conversation at Trump Tower. Flynn pleaded
guilty to lying to the FBI about that conversation, and, of course,
Trump pardoned him days before Flynn was due to be sentenced.
It is kind of an ongoing thing between Trump and Russia. A lot of us
on both sides of the aisle are very concerned about what is going on in
Ukraine--indeed, furious that Putin would launch his army into Ukraine
and perform massive atrocities and war crimes: firing rockets into
children's hospitals, having the soldiers murder through neighborhoods.
It is a foul spectacle, and it started with Russia's invasion of
Crimea, the so-called little green men.
Trump thought that was all a pretty good thing. You will remember
that the way they started it was to foment riots by Russian-speaking
people in Crimea to provide a justification for coming over the
border--sort of 1930s Europe style tactics coming back to us here. So
that kicked it off. There were these demonstrations. Putin said ``Oh,
my people, my people; they are being abused by those terrible
Ukrainians,'' and in went the little green men.
Here is how Trump praised Putin's invasion then of Crimea:
When you see the riots in a country because they're hurting
the Russians, OK, `we'll go and take it over.' And he really
goes step by step, and you have to give him a lot of credit.
And of course there is the famous comment to Russia publicly, saying:
Russia, if you're listening--
This was during the campaign--
I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are
missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by
our press.
Then there were the episodes that I mentioned earlier where he said
``No, Russia wasn't meddling in our elections'' despite the fact that
everybody knew they were. But he took Putin's side in all of that.
Most recently, he refused to condemn Putin for the death of Alexei
Navalny, who had been such a brave fighter, standing up against the
corrupt Putin regime, and died in a penal colony at the age of 47.
For a long time, I have described the United States as being in a
clash of civilizations with rule-of-law countries like ours on the one
side and kleptocrats, autocrats, and governments run by criminal
organizations like the narco-traffickers on the other side. Fairly
simple clash--rule of law versus rule of thuggery.
There ought to be bipartisan support for making sure that the United
States does not become a safe haven for kleptocrats and criminals. We
should not be giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to
park their funds here in our country.
We have made progress to combat the kleptocrats and the international
criminals who are on the other side of this clash of civilizations. Ms.
Gabbard is not on the right side of that clash, not when she is so
chummy with Putin, not when she is so chummy with the murderer Bashar
al-Assad, not when she is ``our darling Tulsi'' to Russian media
channels, and not when she is lined up with Kash Patel, threatening to
take down the FBI Offices that track Russia, taking money from a
Russian filmmaker, and then stack that up with Attorney General Bondi
taking down the kleptocracy and klepto-capture efforts at the DOJ that
have been making the Russian oligarchs' lives miserable by going after
their assets.
One, two, three--all unilaterally disarming against Russia in the
wake of all that time in which the Trump-Russia connection appeared
over and over and over and over again. And as far as I can tell, still
persists today.
I see my colleague here on the Senate floor.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KELLY. Mr. President, today the Senate is deciding whether COL
Tulsi Gabbard should be the person who, each day, makes the call on
which intelligence gets in front of the President of the United States.
That is what the Director of National Intelligence does. They sift
through the intelligence collected and analyzed by all of our
intelligence Agencies, from the CIA to the NSA, and decide what to
brief the President on. This includes information about terrorists
planning attacks here in the United States or on our servicemembers
abroad. It includes evidence of adversaries backing cyber attacks.
Often, the intelligence is incomplete, or there are pieces that
contradict one another. It is this person's job to cut through the
noise and present the President with what he needs to know.
There can't be any spin. There can't be a finger on the scale to get
him to do one thing or not do another. It requires impeccable judgment
and sound decision making.
Everything we have learned about Colonel Gabbard during her
confirmation process suggests that she is not the person for this job.
It is that simple.
Now, I went into this process with an open mind. Colonel Gabbard and
I, we had a long meeting in my office. She responded to a number of
written follow-up questions that my colleagues and I had for her. And I
was able to ask her questions in an open and closed hearing of the
Senate Intelligence Committee.
And after each of those steps, I became more and more concerned.
Colonel Gabbard is often dismissive and has been, at times, outright
hostile towards our intelligence community and the tools that it uses
to protect this country.
Now, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Colonel Gabbard's
service to this Nation, and I do think that healthy skepticism is a
good thing. It is something that I always valued in my crew members at
NASA, and I value it today in the Senate.
But that is not what we have seen from Colonel Gabbard. She has a
track record of embracing overblown, flimsy claims that confirm her own
viewpoint while easily dismissing the thorough assessments and the
methods of our own intelligence community. That is not the person that
we should want in this job.
Now, let's start here with her record on Edward Snowden. Edward
Snowden was a government contractor who stole and then leaked highly
classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013.
Snowden could have used whistleblower protections to securely and
legally share concerns that he had about the legality of certain
surveillance programs, but he didn't do that. Instead, he stole
millions of documents--most of which didn't pertain to the programs
that he had raised concerns about--and then he leaked them, without
caring about what would the lasting damage be to our national security.
After the Department of Justice revealed charges against him for
committing espionage, Snowden fled to Russia, where he was welcomed
with open arms.
Edward Snowden exposed our government's secrets to the world,
including to our adversaries. He put intelligence operatives and
servicemembers around the world at risk, at great risk. And he made all
of us less safe, and that is true even today. He should be in prison
for betraying our country.
COL Tulsi Gabbard wanted him to be pardoned. She introduced
legislation calling on the Federal Government to
[[Page S854]]
drop all charges against Snowden and, unsurprisingly, it failed to gain
support.
This was in September of 2020, after he had been in Russia for nearly
7 years, and after the House Intelligence Committee had released a
bipartisan report to the public detailing about how he had broken the
law and made our country less safe. This came after that.
And she publicly lobbied President Trump to pardon Snowden during his
first term. He didn't.
And on October 6 of 2020, Gabbard called Snowden a brave
whistleblower. Two weeks later, Vladimir Putin gave Snowden permanent
residency in Russia.
This should, obviously, be a great concern to anyone considering her
for this job, and it is clear that Colonel Gabbard knew it would be an
issue in her confirmation hearing. She knew that. So she came prepared
with a well-practiced answer, and she used it, word for word, over and
over again.
Vice Chairman Warner's first question was whether she thinks Edward
Snowden is brave. She said that Edward Snowden broke the law, but that
he released information that led to reforms. She didn't mention the
harm he did to our national security.
He followed up. She started with the same answer. And on and on it
went. Next, with Senator King.
Then Senator Young asked if she agreed with the House Intelligence
Committee report that Snowden caused damage to national security. She
repeated the same answer she had given just before. At least eight
times, by my count, as I sat there in the hearing room, she gave the
same answer word for word.
But the real moment of truth came when Senator Lankford of Oklahoma
asked her what he himself has publicly said was a softball question,
and the question was: Is Edward Snowden a traitor?
It really should have been pretty easy. If you believe Edward Snowden
broke the law and the law he broke is the Espionage Act, it is pretty
clear that is exactly what he is. He is a traitor.
She wouldn't answer.
Senator Bennet gave her another opportunity. She didn't take it.
Now, Colonel Gabbard came into our confirmation hearing with a plan
to give the same nonanswer over and over about Edward Snowden, and she
was counting on that being enough to skate by. It wasn't for me.
And I still can't understand. To this day, I still can't figure it
out, why she will not call this guy a traitor. Colonel Gabbard would be
leading the men and women of our intelligence Agencies whose work and
lives Edward Snowden put at risk.
I ask my Republican colleagues: How can we entrust this
responsibility with someone who wanted to free Edward Snowden and
still, to this day, cannot say whether or not he is a traitor?
For a lot of nominees, that would be a way big enough issue to
prevent them from getting this job. That is pretty clear. But so, too,
would her hostility toward FISA 702, one of the most important
intelligence collection tools that we have. This is the program that
enables us to monitor the communications of foreign actors outside of
the United States. It has stopped terror attacks. It has protected
American troops serving abroad. About 60 percent of the President's
brief every single day is derived from intelligence that is gathered
from this program, the very brief that Colonel Gabbard would be
responsible for compiling every single day. Without it, we would be
exposed. We would be less able to detect and prevent terror attacks or
other attacks against the American people.
But that is exactly what Colonel Gabbard tried to do. She voted
against reauthorizing this program in 2018. And in 2020, she introduced
legislation to repeal it--all of it. Not just the piece--the piece of
it that Congress was debating how to reform, she wanted to just get rid
of the whole thing, all of it. And when she advocated for doing away
with the program, she made false statements about how it works and how
it impacts American citizens.
This should be a concern for anyone being considered for this job.
Because while the Senate Intelligence Committee has a range of views on
how this program should work, none of us on the committee, on either
side of the aisle, has any interest in getting rid of it because we
know how important it is, how critical it is to the safety of all of
us. In fact, we came together with others in Congress to deliver
reforms that further protect our civil liberties as Americans while
retaining the tools our President needs to stay ahead of threats.
Once again, Colonel Gabbard knew that this would be an issue with her
confirmation. And, again, she bet that she could just say as little as
possible to just get by. That is why, in a written response to the
committee, she said:
My prior concerns about FISA were based on insufficient
protections for civil liberties . . . Significant FISA
reforms have been enacted since my time in Congress to
address these issues.
Sounds reasonable. Well, here is the problem. Just last year, she was
on a podcast trashing those very reforms she is now saying back up her
position on FISA. She said:
This legislation that was just passed recently expanded
those authorities . . . in some other ways, it took an
already bad problem and made it many, many times worse.
So which is it? Did these reforms fix the issues she had with FISA,
as she said in her written response? Or did they make the problem
worse, as she said on the podcast? It can't be both.
Colonel Gabbard was asked about this inconsistency during her
confirmation hearing, and she couldn't answer for it. In fact, she
couldn't answer for what these reforms are and how they address her
concerns or don't.
And, folks, this is not trivial. The Director of National
Intelligence works with the Attorney General to assess compliance with
the law and improve internal procedures that decide how the
intelligence community will collect, use, and store foreign
intelligence to combat threats like terrorism while ensuring Americans'
constitutional rights are protected. That means Colonel Gabbard would
be responsible for implementing these reforms and advising Congress on
their effectiveness.
Finally, as we are all aware--well, all of us in the Senate, we are
aware--this program is up for reauthorization in just over a year.
President Trump has been all over the map on this program, but as
recently as last year, he told Congress to kill FISA. The next Director
of National Intelligence is going to play a critical role in advising
the President and making recommendations to Congress about this
program, FISA. Do we really trust that Colonel Gabbard will fight to
protect this program, given her track record on this?
I know I don't. That, too, should be disqualifying for this job.
But the last example of Colonel Gabbard's hostility toward the
intelligence community is the one that should give everyone the most
concern. It is for me. As I said earlier, the primary responsibility of
this job is to coordinate across 18 intelligence organizations and sift
through intelligence, make some sense of it, and decide what to take to
the President of the United States. In her confirmation hearing, I
asked Colonel Gabbard: What does a good process look like?
And her answer to this question--it was fine. She said: Build a
strong team, welcome dissenting voices, and make sure the truth is
reported.
That is great. But then we got into a real-life example when she had
sought out the intel, claimed to be reporting the truth, and then got
it wrong. That is where, for me, it was obvious she is not the right
fit for this job.
Colonel Gabbard accepts the conclusion that former Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people, except
for two incidents. She has publicly disputed the confident conclusion
of our intelligence community and international experts that Assad used
chemical weapons in Khan Shaykhun in 2017 and in Douma, both in Syria,
in 2018. She authored a report--this was put on her campaign website--
questioning whether these attacks were staged by anti-Assad groups,
despite the repeated determinations that this was yet another incident
of him murdering his own citizens.
You might be asking yourself: Why? Why did Colonel Gabbard go to such
great lengths to sow doubt about these two attacks, knowing that it
would have to be useful to Assad's goals? Why
[[Page S855]]
did she doubt our intelligence community's conclusion in these two
cases, but not the others?
Well, I asked her, and here is how that answer began. This is a quote
from Colonel Gabbard:
These two cases are being looked at to be used as a pretext
for major military movement. And another--my fear was a
repeat of the deployment of another half million soldiers
like we saw in Iraq towards what was the Obama
administration's goals, which was regime change in Syria.
Setting aside that Obama didn't deploy a half million soldiers to
Syria, here is the problem. By her own admission, Colonel Gabbard's
doubts about U.S. intelligence in these two situations began with her
disagreements about how the intelligence was going to be used. She
didn't want the United States and our allies to strike Syria as
punishment for these chemical weapons attacks. So instead of making a
strong argument on the policy, she tried to question whether the
attacks happened in the first place.
Colonel Gabbard also invoked the Iraq war. She is right. We needed to
learn important lessons from the lead-up to the invasion. The biggest
lesson was to carefully follow the intelligence where it actually
leads, rather than bending it to fit the outcome that you want, which
is exactly what Colonel Gabbard did in this case.
It is that simple, folks, and it is also that dangerous, especially
for someone in this job. If she has already disputed intelligence
because of how it would be used, would she do it again in this
position--the position of the Director of National Intelligence? She is
the person deciding what the President would see.
Would she withhold information or would she seek out confirmation
without regard for whom it came from or that her viewpoint was correct?
Because that is what she did in this case--the report she authored
questioning whether these attacks were staged relied on a professor
without expertise in chemical weapons. His theories in this case were
deeply flawed and have been widely debunked by experts.
I asked Colonel Gabbard if she was aware that this professor had
appeared on Russian propaganda news stations. She said she had no idea.
To produce his findings, this professor relied on an Australian
chemistry student with a history of defending the Assad regime. I asked
her if she was aware of that. She said she was not--not at the time--
but since she has been made aware.
Here is what that tells me: Colonel Gabbard was unwilling to even
examine, let alone weigh, the biases and shortcomings of the sources
she was seeking out and elevating. She embraced these people and their
half-baked theories because they confirmed what she wanted to be true--
that Assad didn't gas his own people in these two cases. She wanted it
to be true so badly that, 5 years later, she says that she was still
unaware of the facts of their background--facts that me and my staff
found with some rather routine searching of public information. It was
not hard.
And she trusted and further publicized their claims without
verification, despite our government making clear that Assad and Russia
would attempt to raise these sorts of questions and theories to
distract America and our allies.
Mr. President, if that is not a redflag, I don't know what is. Still,
5 years later, Colonel Gabbard came before the U.S. Senate Intelligence
Committee and repeated all of this as if it weren't in contention. She
continues to apply less skepticism toward these sources and narratives
than the assessments of American intelligence operatives, professionals
who have a ton of experience at this and whom she is nominated to
lead--all because they support her point of view: The United States
should not have struck Syria in retaliation for their use of chemical
weapons. That is why she believed the people online.
Now, that kind of reverse engineering to try to steer a policy
outcome is dangerous in a job like this.
Mr. President, the next couple of years are going to be challenging
for our national security. I think we all agree upon that. We face
threats that grow more complicated each and every day. And our
intelligence community, they are the best in the world. They are really
good at gathering intelligence of all kinds. The hardest part is
sifting through that information and making some sense of what it all
means, making determinations. That is what this job is all about. And
everything we have seen from Colonel Gabbard throughout this process
suggests that she is the wrong person for this job.
She lifted up Edward Snowden as a hero and is unwilling to call him a
traitor. She tried to get rid of one of the most important intelligence
collection tools that we have and has contradicted herself when
answering for it. And most central to this role, she has displayed poor
judgment and poor decision making when assessing intelligence,
especially when it comes to chemical weapons use in Syria.
Each of these--each one of them on their own--should be disqualifying
for holding this job. Taken together, they paint a picture of someone
who is especially ill-suited and unprepared to take on this
responsibility.
I know that these concerns are shared by my Republican colleagues. So
let's be honest about it. Let's say no to the political pressure. And
let's put our national security first, and let's vote no on this
nominee.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
____________________