Trump's unorthodox intelligence pick to face Senate grilling on past positions

President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence is expected to face sharp questioning from Senate Democrats — and Republicans —​ on her past positions supporting foreign adversaries and damaging intelligence disclosures during a nomination hearing set for Thursday.

Former House member Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii Democrat turned Republican, is one of Mr. Trump’s more unorthodox ​and controversial nominations.

Ms. Gabbard signed on to the Make America Great Again movement after switching to the Republican Party in late October, just two weeks before Election Day. If confirmed, she would head the umbrella office charged with overseeing the work of some 18 U.S. intelligence agencies and by privy to some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets.

Her last-minute political conversion has raised concerns among some conservatives about her past liberal positions, including support for socialist Sen. Bernard Sanders in his 2016 presidential campaign and defending National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

Mr. Snowden fled to Russia after disclosing what NSA has said is an estimated 1.7 million classified documents, only a few of which were related to domestic NSA surveillance activities, a suspected motive of the whistleblower.

Former intelligence officials also have questioned whether Ms. Gabbard is qualified for the sensitive intelligence post based on her lack of experience and her past public support for American adversaries like Russia and North Korea.

Other controversial views of the nominee include past statements of Syria’s Bashar Assad and support for left-wing political groups and policies.

According to the website KeyWiki that includes a page on the nominee, Ms. Gabbard in the past advocated or voted in Congress for anti-police policies in the aftermath of the George Floyd death; decriminalizing prostitution; supporting the “Green New Deal” radical environmental agenda; banning oil fracking; and favoring slavery reparations for Black Americans.

Clean as a whistle

Asked about the controversies, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, who will preside over the nomination hearing, said on Sunday his panel scheduled the hearing after receiving reports on her background investigation and financial disclosures statement.

​The Arkansas Republican said her background investigation showed “she is clean as a whistle” and, whatever her views on policies and laws are, that she would “faithfully execute the president’s agenda.”

Thursday’s hearing will be “full” and similar to those held for earlier Democratic and Republican nominees, Mr. Cotton said on Fox News Sunday. “No more, no less.”

Mr. Cotton said he understands the concerns of senators from both parties over her views.

“I do hope that we won’t see anyone questioning her patriotism,” Mr. Cotton said, noting that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once called Ms. Gabbard a traitor.

Minority Senate Democrats are expected to overwhelmingly oppose Ms. Gabbard’s nomination, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer took aim at the nominee in floor remarks Wednesday.

“Of all people President Trump could have nominated for the job of DNI, few could be worse for our national security ​than Tulsi Gabbard,” the New York Democrat said. “If confirmed, Ms. Gabbard would be a walking liability to our intelligence community and our national security. She has a long and troubled history of spreading falsities and sympathizing with the likes of Vladimir Putin and Assad.”

Mr. Schumer said that based on her past “it’s not unreasonable to ask if Ms. Gabbard would use the DNI job to push false intelligence for political ends.”

Recent news reports, quoting congressional sources, suggest some believe Ms. Gabbard may not have the votes to be approved by the intelligence committee.

Standing firm

Despite the opposition, the White House is sticking with Ms. Gabbard.

“Tulsi Gabbard has dedicated her life to serving our country both in uniform as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and as member of Congress,” National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement.

“President Trump has made clear he needs his national security team in place to ensure our nation is safeguarded from threats both home and abroad.”

Still, there will be a lot for the former congresswoman to explain on Thursday.

On North Korea, Ms. Gabbard has said the United States is to blame for Pyongyang refusing to give up its nuclear weapons, tweeting in 2019: “In order to de-escalate nuclear crisis with NK, we need to understand why [North Korean leader Kim Jong-un] is holding on so tightly to their nuclear weapons. It is because he sees them as his only deterrent from the US coming in and trying to topple his regime.”

Senators are expected to explore Ms. Gabbard’s defense of Mr. Snowden. In 2019, while running for the Democratic nomination for president, she said the massive leaks, which U.S. officials say compromised NSA electronic spying capabilities, had a positive impact.

In Congress, Ms. Gabbard sought legislation to shut down what she said were abuses and violations of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

In 2020, during her presidential campaign, Ms. Gabbard also received an endorsement from Russian ultranationalist Aleksandr Dugan, considered the ideological light behind Mr. Putin’s authoritarian regime.

John Schindler, a former NSA counterintelligence official, said Ms. Gabbard’s nomination raises significant counterintelligence questions​, including why sh​e adopted positions that appear pro-Vladimir Putin and pro-Hafez Assad and apparently lied about a controversial trip to Syrian in 2017 when she met ​Mr. Assad.

“What were those vexing 2017 NSA [signals intelligence] intercepts about that trip, just revealed by the New York Times, really about?” he asked, suggesting the trip may have been why her name was placed on the TSA terrorism watchlist. “None of these are show-stopping events, by themselves, but they certainly merit Senate questions when Gabbard appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.”

Ms. Gabbard has also said Mr. Trump’s decision in January 2020 to order a drone strike that killed Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani was an act of war. Mr. Trump said at the time Soleimani was plotting attacks on American diplomats and military personnel.

Regarding China, Ms. Gabbard said in 2023 that she opposed Japan’s rearmament in the face of growing threats posed by China. Tokyo signed a contract with the United States in January 2024 to buy 400 Tomahawk land attack missiles, weapons with enough range to hit targets throughout northeast China.

“We need to be careful that shortsighted, self-serving leaders do not end up bringing us again face-to-face with a remilitarized Japan,” Ms. Gabbard said on X.

A former U.S. official who opposes Ms. Gabbard’s nomination said she has a well-established track record of favoring leftist and anti-U.S. policies.

“This is her whole adult life’s pattern of knee-jerk anti-Americanism, anti-defense, supine-peace-niki — and as far as the research can establish, her network of friends, surfer pals, funders, colleagues and co-sponsors, are similarly of the extreme Left,” the former official said, speaking on background to avoid any retaliation from the Trump administration.

New Zealand author Trevor Loudon included a chapter on Ms. Gabbard in his 2020 book, “White House Reds.”

The book argued that Ms. Gabbard was a relatively conservative Democrat who moved leftward during her House career. She had a close relationship with the Marxist U.S. group Democratic Socialist of America and joined Mr. Sanders’ Congressional Progressive Caucus while in the House, Mr. Loudon noted.