Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, lacks experience, and her record of Russia-aligned public statements could undermine the ability of the United States to acquire intelligence from allies and partners, current and former intelligence officials say.
Trump on Wednesday announced his intention to put Gabbard, who served in Congress as a Democrat from Hawaii, in charge of the national intelligence office. The office coordinates intelligence efforts across the entire government, forges intelligence-sharing relationships with other countries, and shapes the way the public and the White House understand threats to U.S. interests. The office takes a leading role in assembling the daily brief for the president, which the White House uses to understand how adversaries are working against the United States, and in telling the public about threats Americans face.
Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, has military experience but not a deep background in intelligence. One former senior intelligence official told Defense One that such experience is vital to making sense of the wide variety of intelligence pieces that compose a picture of current or future threats.
“What people don’t understand about intelligence is, if it’s known, it’s not intelligence. It’s that assessment that you make. It has uncertainty, and the craft of understanding that uncertainty has nothing to do with opinion but rather has to do with trust, integrity and independence,” the former official said.
But intelligence community veterans are more concerned with her past actions and public statements—particularly those that aligned with Kremlin propaganda—than her resume.
In 2022, as Russian forces were launching an illegal expansion of their war against Ukraine, Gabbard said the U.S. was to blame, echoing a claim Russian President Vladimir Putin made to justify his invasion—but that NATO and the United Nations fully reject. Putin later said the war was actually a means to reconstitute the territorial empire of Catherine II.
Gabbard has echoed other Russian talking points as well, including one that came directly from Kremlin information operations.
Beyond Ukraine, Gabbard met with Syrian dictator and Russian ally Bashar Al-Assad in 2017. Assad continued to target civilians with chemical attacks after meeting Gabbard. But two years after the meeting, she refused to say whether he was a war criminal—despite clear evidence that he had killed some 1,400 people in Syria in a chemical weapons attack in 2013, among other crimes.
Gabbard’s pattern of publicly taking positions that are not supported by fact but do match up with narratives out of Moscow is going to hurt U.S. intelligence-sharing relationships with partner militaries and governments, the former senior official said. Many allies are already wary of Trump because of actions during his first term in the White House, such as abandoning Kurdish fighters in Syria in 2018—a move that prompted the resignation of several members of Trump’s first cabinet, including then-Defense Secretary James Mattis and anti-ISIS coalition envoy Brett McGurk.
“They’re watching. Remember, there are a whole bunch of people that already, from [Trump’s] first term, are not comfortable with Trump because he was willing to throw allies and partners on a whim under the bus…So [allies] are already worried. And now this is a pertinent person who has basically said, ‘Hey, I think these bad guys are good guys.’”
Gabbard’s past public statements will also hurt her ability to earn trust among rank-and-file intelligence workers in the United States, said one current intelligence official.
“Tulsi’s history of irresponsibly promoting misinformation and giving comfort to some of America’s most aggressive adversaries is counter to the values of the intelligence community. If confirmed, she’ll have a steep hill to climb to earn the trust and respect of the community,” the official told Defense One.
As DNI, Gabbard would be ultimately responsible for protecting U.S. intelligence operations and people from adversaries. She also would be the one to make the call on things like the 2022 decision to declassify intelligence analyses of Russia’s intentions in Ukraine, which helped marshal allies to Ukraine’s cause.
“That decision was an ODNI decision,” said the former senior intelligence official. “It is reflective of a new world order where we don’t have absolute trust and you do need to be able to build coalitions… Alliances, friendships have always been one of the real elements of our strength. And it’s imperiled.”
Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., a former CIA officer, echoed this sentiment on MSNBC on Thursday. “The idea that someone who has aligned herself with and defended Vladimir Putin could potentially have information related to the sources and methods of how it is that we knew that Russia was going to have invaded Ukraine…helps illuminate why this is so extraordinarily dangerous.”
Because of her past statements, intelligence professionals are also worried that she could alter analysis to fit a political narrative, which would leave the president or the public in the dark about key threats.
Said the current intelligence official: “Intelligence is conducted in the service of the nation, without regard for political parties or motives, and we are typically the bearers of bad news. Will she champion the professionalism and apolitical nature of what we gather and assess, and speak truth to power, or disregard our work to convey what power wants to hear?”
Gabbard may also face an additional challenge when building trust within the community: The Trump administration decided to forgo the traditional FBI vetting of nominees to top posts, including Gabbard, CNN reported Friday.
Frank Konkel contributed to this report.
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