The Tulsi Gabbard Smears Are Unfounded, Unfair, and Unhelpful; was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve (Iraq, Africa); Questioning Gabbard’s loyalty to America is not only low—the tactic is

also ineffective. No evidence has emerged that she has ever collaborated in any way with Russia’s intelligence agencies; no evidence she is colluding with a foreign power or disloyal to our country.

47 has tapped her to be the new DNI, Director of National Intelligence.

By Eli Lake

‘Gabbard should be pressed to explain two things: why she believed Ukraine was as much to blame for Russia for a war that Russia alone started, and her thoughts on al-Assad’s tyranny, which is now being challenged by the very Syrians he purports to rule. If she persuasively clarifies how her views have developed, then she should have the chance to serve. But if she can’t square her past positions, or she still defends them, then the Senate should reject her nomination.

Again, this is how the process is supposed to work. For those senators still concerned that Gabbard may soon oversee the U.S. intelligence community, it should also signal that Washington at the end of 2024 is not the same place as it was in 2017.

In other words, criticize Gabbard for her weakness and credulity when it comes to America’s adversaries, but don’t question the loyalty of a woman who has served honorably in uniform.’

By Eli Lake

By Eli Lake

Start here:

‘If one read only the legacy press and listened to Democrats, one would think that president-elect Donald Trump has just nominated a Kremlin stooge to oversee America’s intelligence community.

Trump’s choice to be his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, has been tarred as “likely a Russian asset” by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). The New York Times last week devoted a feature-length story to how Gabbard has become a “favorite of Russia’s state media.” Hillary Clinton once claimed Moscow was “grooming” her to run for president. Former congressman Adam Kinzinger, writing in The Bulwark, called her “outright disloyal.”

Gabbard certainly has very different views than Clinton and Kinzinger on foreign policy and the intelligence community. But her neutrality on Ukraine’s war for survival and her openness to diplomacy with despots also places her out of step with the mainstream of the Republican majority (not to mention most Democrats) in the Senate. She will have some explaining to do in her nomination hearing.

I happen to think Gabbard is far too credulous when it comes to some of the world’s most despicable tyrants. Her past remarks about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were horrendous. Consider her video message from February 27, 2022, three days after Russia unilaterally invaded Ukraine. “It’s time to put geopolitics aside and embrace the spirit of aloha, respect and love, for the Ukrainian people by coming to an agreement that Ukraine will be a neutral country.”

She uttered those words when Ukraine was at risk of extinguishment by the Russian army. There was no room for both sides at that moment. The Ukrainians were the victims; the Russians were the aggressors. And yet Gabbard believed Russia should be rewarded by preemptively closing off Ukraine’s prospect of joining NATO’s defensive alliance, even after the country had historically been invaded and starved by its powerful neighbor. No thanks.

That wasn’t the first time Gabbard displayed atrocious judgment in foreign policy. In 2017, four years after Syria’s tyrant Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his opposition, Gabbard visited him in Damascus to pursue dialogue. There’s nothing wrong with meeting an adversary in war. But as a member of Congress, she was conferring legitimacy on a regime that the first Trump administration was trying to isolate. That visit is likely to cause even more problems for her after rebel forces swept through the west and northwest of Syria over the weekend, capturing the ancient city of Aleppo—and proving once again that al-Assad does not have the support of his people.

Indeed, Gabbard’s opposition to conflict at all costs has, in the past, put her on the wrong side of some of Trump’s best foreign policy decisions. In 2020, after Trump ordered the strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s terror master general, Gabbard said the operation had “no justification whatsoever.” Soleimani had targeted American troops in Iraq for years by that point. In the run-up to the strike, Soleimani’s minions had attempted to overrun the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Other Iranian proxies in the months before had attacked international shipping lanes and launched strikes against Saudi oil facilities.

That said, there is no evidence that she came to these views because she is colluding with a foreign power or disloyal to our country. The woman is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, and she served in Iraq and the Horn of Africa.

Gabbard speaks with Trump during a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, on October 22, 2024. (Jabin Botsford via Getty Images)

Questioning Gabbard’s loyalty to America is not only low—the tactic is also ineffective. This innuendo campaign comes on the eve of Trump’s second term. Americans lived through his first term when MSNBC broadcast false allegations from a junk dossier to its viewers as if it were ironclad proof of presidential treason. It turned out the infamous pee tape wasn’t real and neither was the elaborate theory of Trump-Russia collusion. Meanwhile, Trump pursued an often hawkish line on Russia, such as selling arms to Ukraine when his predecessor did not.

In this light, the howls of “traitor” come off as sound and fury, signifying nothing. It’s just more Russia, Russia, Russia, as Kellyanne Conway once said. Even The New York Times, in its story about the alignment between Gabbard’s foreign policy views and Moscow, acknowledged, “No evidence has emerged that she has ever collaborated in any way with Russia’s intelligence agencies.”

So it’s both unsavory and ineffective to imply that Gabbard is a Russian asset. And unlike some of Trump’s other controversial cabinet picks, GOP insiders tell me that senators would like to find a reason to approve Gabbard’s nomination. As one Republican Senate staffer told The Free Press, “No one is looking to get into a fight right now over this; there are too many other bigger fish to fry.”

The signals from Mar-a-Lago suggest that they are looking for Gabbard to play up her commitment to curbing the kinds of abuses in the intelligence community that plagued the first Trump administration.

“Just as the Democrats and the Washington elite see President Trump as a threat to their unchecked power, they see Congresswoman Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard as a threat as well,” said Trump transition spokeswoman Alexa Henning. “As DNI director she will champion our constitutional rights and put an end to using intelligence agencies as weapons against the American people.”

That does not sound like a nominee willing to double down on the spirit of aloha when it comes to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Nonetheless, in order to be confirmed, the former Hawaii lawmaker will have to show that some of her positions have evolved. That is the normal way confirmation hearings work. A nominee’s record is reviewed and challenged, and the nominee then offers to revise and extend their remarks.

Gabbard should be pressed to explain two things: why she believed Ukraine was as much to blame for Russia for a war that Russia alone started, and her thoughts on al-Assad’s tyranny, which is now being challenged by the very Syrians he purports to rule. If she persuasively clarifies how her views have developed, then she should have the chance to serve. But if she can’t square her past positions, or she still defends them, then the Senate should reject her nomination.

Again, this is how the process is supposed to work. For those senators still concerned that Gabbard may soon oversee the U.S. intelligence community, it should also signal that Washington at the end of 2024 is not the same place as it was in 2017. In other words, criticize Gabbard for her weakness and credulity when it comes to America’s adversaries, but don’t question the loyalty of a woman who has served honorably in uniform.’

Excellent piece.

___

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