Trump’s pick for top intelligence job has been accused of ‘treasonous’ parroting of Russian propaganda

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, former Democratic lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard, has been accused of bolstering Russian propaganda and would come to the job having never worked in the intelligence world or served on a congressional intelligence committee.

Gabbard, who served in the Hawaii Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq with a medical unit, has long criticized US foreign policy as imperialistic and heavy-handed. She has also previously sharply criticized Trump over his approach to the Middle East during his first term as president, portraying him as dangerous.

As director of national intelligence, a position created in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Gabbard would oversee 18 intelligence agencies with a budget of about $70 billion and serve as the president’s chief adviser on intelligence matters. She must first be confirmed by the Senate, where Republicans will hold the majority starting in January.

In her public statements, Gabbard has often contradicted US intelligence assessments. If confirmed, her tenure is likely to be marked by clashes with government analysts who see Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government as the primary purveyor of disinformation designed to divide the United States

Outraged lawmakers accused Gabbard two years ago of echoing Russian propaganda after Gabbard posted a video on social media claims “the indisputable fact” of alleged US-funded biolabs throughout Ukraine. She did not specify, as Russian disinformation had, that they were biological weapons laboratories.

The government of Ukraine, the US government, news organizations and independent researchers have all said there is no evidence for the claim, which originated in Moscow.

Then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Gabbard had embraced “actual Russian propaganda” and called it “treasonous.” Late. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Gabbard was “parroting false Russian propaganda.”

Gabbard, who sent a cease-and-desist letter to Romney over his remarks, denied repeating Russian propaganda and sought to clarify her social media posts, saying in a separate post that “‘Biolabs,’ ‘bioweapons labs,’ and ‘bioweapons’ are 3 very different things. But because these phrases are so similar, there are sometimes miscommunications and misunderstandings when they are discussed. I have experienced that myself recently.”

She also argued that her critics were trying to “censor” her questioning of the Washington establishment.

“When powerful, influential people make baseless accusations of treason, a crime punishable by death, to intimidate, silence and censor those who speak the truth, it has a chilling effect on our democracy,” she said.

The US has supported civilian Ukrainian biological research labs to protect public health, not weapons labs. Russia has repeatedly spread the lie that Washington has funded biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine.

Gabbard also criticized the Biden administration for requiring American service members to be vaccinated against Covid.

During her 2020 presidential run, Russian state propaganda often portrayed Gabbard favorably while disparaging the other Democratic candidates, including Joe Biden, according to research by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia-based think tank.

Less than a month into her presidential campaign, there were at least 20 Gabbard stories on three major Moscow-based English-language websites affiliated with or supporting the Russian government — all celebrating her candidacy.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Gabbard said the war could have been prevented if the United States and the West had recognized Moscow’s concerns about Ukraine’s possible joining of the NATO alliance.

But a potential colleague in the second Trump administration, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is Trump’s choice for secretary of state, disagreed with Gabbard at the time.

“A pledge that #Ukraine would never join NATO wasn’t Putin’s only demand,” Rubio said on X. “As recently as last week, he once again demanded that NATO leave all countries that joined after 1997, including Bulgaria, Romania and 12 others.”

Conspiracy theories about a chemical attack

In 2017, Gabbard said she was “skeptical” that Syria was behind a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of people in Syria.

But US intelligence agencies, the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons all concluded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime was behind the attack.

Shortly after the attack, Russia launched a disinformation campaign to try to deny Syria responsibility and promoted fabricated narratives, US officials said.

Gabbard faced criticism in 2015 from members of her own party when she called on the Obama administration to stop supporting Syria’s opposition movement against Assad’s authoritarian rule.

“I don’t think Assad should be removed,” she said at the time, saying Islamist extremist groups would take over if he were toppled.

She made an unannounced trip to Syria in 2017 to meet Assad, even though the United States had severed diplomatic ties with Damascus and after human rights groups accused him of committing atrocities to stay in power. The trip sparked an outcry from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

She defended the trip. “When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so because I felt that it is important that if we profess that we really care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we have to be able meet with everyone we need if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace,” Gabbard told CNN.

On Wednesday, Rep. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., a former CIA officer, said she was “appalled” by Trump’s selection of Gabbard.

“Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she peddles conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin,” Spanberger says wrote X. “As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security. My Republican colleagues with a backbone should speak out.”

During her career in the House from 2013 to 2021 and as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Gabbard often espoused progressive, dovish positions and questioned US military interventions and foreign policy in the Middle East. In 2016, she endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the Democratic presidential race and resigned from her position on the Democratic National Committee.

Lowness for Assange and Snowden

In a 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate, Gabbard called for “an end to this ongoing Bush-Clinton-Trump foreign policy doctrine of regime change wars, overthrowing dictators in other countries, needlessly sending my brothers and sisters in uniform into danger to fight in wars, that actually undermines our national security and has cost us thousands of American lives.”

In 2022, Gabbard announced she would leave the Democratic Party, and last month she said she was joining the Republican Party.

She has called for leniency for Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, both accused of leaking masses of classified US information that intelligence officials at the time described as potentially serious damage to US national security and US allies.

Trump’s actions as president in his first term came under harsh criticism from Gabbard, who slammed his plan for a wall on the southern border, his policy toward Iran and his support for Saudi Arabia in its war with Houthi rebels.

In 2018, she referred to Trump as “Saudi Arabia’s b—-” in a social media post after Trump said the United States was strongly behind Saudi Arabia and claimed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s role in the killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi may never be known. Trump’s statement defied the conclusions of the CIA, which found that the crown prince approved Khashoggi’s murder.

Despite her criticism of Trump, Gabbard voted “present” on both articles of impeachment against him in 2019 over allegations that he pressured Ukraine to unearth damaging information about Biden, his political rival.

In 2020, Gabbard condemned Trump over his decision to order a US drone strike against Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, calling it a dangerous escalation and unconstitutional since Congress had not authorized the action.

“That is the significance of the action that Trump took last night, violating the Constitution, taking military action, removing a commander-in-chief of another country without any congressional authorization or declaration of war,” Gabbard said at the time.

She also criticized Trump for his decision to withdraw the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which set limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for an easing of US economic sanctions.

Gabbard, a native Hawaiian, began her political career at a young age. She won election to the state House of Representatives at age 21, becoming the youngest person elected to the office in state history.