Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s nominee for national security director, refused to call the whistleblower Edward Snowden a “traitor” but sought to rein in her unorthodox views on foreign dictators and opposition to electronic surveillance during a tense confirmation hearing that could sink her nomination to oversee the country’s sprawling intelligence community.
In a three-hour hearing before the Senate intelligence committee, Gabbard, a former congresswoman and member of the Hawaii army national guard, partially recanted her views that Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine, said she had “no love” for the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and denied meeting with Hezbollah representatives during a trip to Lebanon in 2017.
Gabbard, who has ruthlessly criticised the US intelligence community that she now aims to lead, has said that she has been the target of “lies and smears” ahead of a committee vote in which she cannot afford to lose the support of a single Republican member.
Skeptical senators said she was unfit to serve as national security director because of questions over her “judgment” in past statements on Vladimir Putin’s “legitimate security concerns” in Ukraine, an independent 2017 visit to Damascus in which she met Assad, as well as her support for Snowden, whom she admitted had “broken the law” but refused to condemn as a “traitor” despite heated – and sometimes shouted – questioning from Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday.
“Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience and the constitution of the United States, accusing me of being Trump’s puppet, Putin’s puppet, Assad’s puppet, a guru’s puppet, Modi’s puppet, not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters,” she said.
“The fact is, what truly unsettles my political opponents is I refuse to be their puppet,” she said. “I have no love for Assad or Gaddafi or any dictator. I just hate al-Qaida. I hate that we have leaders who cozy up to Islamist extremists.”
Gabbard, who was dressed in a snow-white pantsuit and sweater, responded in an even baritone as she toned down her criticism of the US intelligence apparatus, including her past efforts to shutter the Fisa Section 702 law that allows electronic surveillance abroad without a warrant. She now supports reauthorizing the law.
“I don’t find your change of heart credible,” said Mark Warner, the committee’s head vice-chair, indicating that and her past support for Snowden were key concerns for members of the committee.
Gabbard’s hearing was a tightrope walk. A majority of members of the Senate intelligence committee must support her in order for her candidacy to advance to a floor vote in the Senate. A number of US media including Fox News on Thursday reported that she did not yet have the votes to win confirmation.
Her candidacy was also endangered by a series of recent leaks in the press. The New York Times this week reported that US intelligence had intercepted a phone call between two Hezbollah operatives who said that Gabbard had met with “the big guy” during a visit to Lebanon in 2017, indicating a senior Hezbollah official.
During the hearing, Gabbard denied having met with Hezbollah operatives and said it was an “absurd accusation”.
Those ties to foreign governments were a key concern of members of the committee before the hearing. “There is real concern about her contacts [in Syria] and that she does not share the same sympathies and values as the intelligence community,” a person familiar with discussions among senior intelligence officials previously told the Guardian. “She is historically unfit.”
During the hearing, the Colorado senator Michael Bennet attacked Gabbard for a tweet sent out just hours after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in which she said: “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns.”
While she did not explain those remarks, she did indicate that she had had a change of heart. Asked bluntly who she blamed for the war between Russia and Ukraine, she said: “Putin started the invasion of Ukraine.”
Yet the strongest questions regarded her past support for Snowden, whom she admitted had broken US laws by taking a trove of top secret intelligence documents while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency and later leaking them to media, including the Guardian.
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“Is Edward Snowden a traitor: yes or no?” Gabbard was asked by successive Democratic senators, including Bennet.
“Snowden broke the law,” said Gabbard. “He released information about the United States … I have more immediate steps that I would take to prevent another Snowden.”
“This is when the rubber hits the road,” Bennet retorted, demanding a “yes” or “no” answer. “This is not a moment for social media. It’s not a moment to propagate conspiracy theories … This is when you need to answer questions of the people whose votes you’re asking for.”
Tracking Trump cabinet confirmations – so far
Those questions were foreseen by Snowden himself, who wrote in a tweet on Thursday that Gabbard would be “required to disown all prior support for whistleblowers as a condition of confirmation”.
“I encourage her to do so. Tell them I harmed national security and the sweet, soft feelings of staff,” he said. “In DC, that’s what passes for the pledge of allegiance.”
The committee is expected to hold a closed session to discuss sensitive matters later on Thursday and then would move to a vote “as soon as possible”. said Tom Cotton, the committee chair.
“Obviously we didn’t select this nominee,” said Bennet, Gabbard’s most vocal skeptic. “But can’t we do better than somebody who doesn’t believe in [Fisa law] 702? Can we believe that somebody who can’t answer whether Snowden was a traitor five times today, who made excuses for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?”
