Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, faces a series of challenges to her confirmation and the first major test will be her hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday.
U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) is one of several who have been cited in recent media reports expressing skepticism about Gabbard’s past statements and positions.
In an interview earlier this week, Sen. Collins expressed concern in particular with how Gabbard has explained her position on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows intelligence agencies to collect electronic surveillance on foreign threats but in the process of doing so may also monitor the communications of U.S. citizens.
“Her answers to the written questions were very hedged on it. I know there’s been a lot of reporting that she’s changed her position. That’s not how I read her answers. I read them as, ‘I’ll take a look at the reforms and see if they meet my concerns.’”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) likewise expressed skepticism about Gabbard’s qualifications for the role.
As a Democratic congresswoman, Gabbard introduced a bill in 2020 that would have repealed the Patriot Act together with the government’s Section 702 powers.
More recently, her position has evolved and earlier this month she called the surveillance program “crucial
Following revelations that an FBI lawyer lied to a FISA court in order secure a warrant to access the communications of Trump campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page, in 2020 Congress took up the issue of reforming the legislation that authorized FISA.
Collins and other senators on the intelligence panel will also likely seek explanations from Gabbard about her 2017 meeting with now-ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and statements she made as recently as 2022 seen as sympathetic to Russia’s stated reasoning for invading Ukraine.
At the outset of the war, Gabbard argued that the invasion could have been avoided if the Biden Administration had acknowledged Russia’s concerns with NATO’s expansion towards their territory.
“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 US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border,” said Gabbard.
A combat veteran of the U.S. war in Iraq, Gabbard has consistently opposed what she has termed as unnecessary U.S. intervention in foreign wars throughout her career in public office.
Gabbard’s views on foreign intervention appear to align with those of President Trump, who has promised to bring about a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, and put American interests over international concerns.
In addition to Collins, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) is another Republican on the intelligence committee who has expressed reservations about Gabbard.
“We’ll have lot’s of questions, she met with Bashar Assad, we’ll want to know what the purpose was, what the direction for that was,” said Sen. Lankford during an interview with CNN.
Should her nomination fail to win the support of all Republicans on the committee, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.Dak.) has indicated there may still be a mechanism to move it to the floor for a vote.
This mechanism could include pushing Gabbard to a vote in the whole senate even if she fails to receive a favorable recommendation from the Intelligence Committee.
With Gabbard’s hearing looming, rumors have surfaced that the Intelligence Committee may hold a secret vote.
“I’m told that the vote for Tulsi Gabbard might be done privately in a SCIF – with the vote tallies kept secret from the American people. This is outrageous and wrong. The American people deserve to know how THEIR Senators vote on Trump’s nominees,” said conservative media personality Charlie Kirk on X.
A secret vote would potentially allow Republicans to vote against Trump’s chosen nominee without making those votes known to their constituents and risking losing their support.
While the committee has voted in secret in the past, pressure among Trump allies is mounting on committee chairman U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) to call for an open vote on Gabbard.
Seamus Othot contributed to the reporting on this story.
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