January 30, 2025

The Gabbard Hearing: A Tough Fight Looms

Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence has both strong support and strong opposition — among Republicans.

At a moment like this, it’s tough to focus on the looming confirmation fight for a Trump cabinet nominee. Our thoughts are obviously with those who lost loved ones in DC last night. Yet here we are.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Senate confirmation hearings will take place as scheduled today, and she’s expected to have a tough fight. The former Democrat congresswoman is Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, and the forces arrayed against her are formidable.

Democrats and the mainstream media, of course, hate nothing more than one of their own who’s left the flock, and Gabbard is just that, having evolved in recent years from Democrat congresswoman to presidential candidate to political independent to Trump supporter to Republican Party member.

In a predictably vile New York Times hit piece, Gabbard is painted as having been raised in “a secretive offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement.” Her patriotism, her congressional experience, her more than 20 years of military service, and the five background checks she’s undergone seem somehow less important to the Times and other Gabbard critics.

Instead, they think the confirmation process is better served by floating outlandish deep-state stories about how Gabbard, on a Middle East trip in 2017, may have met with “the boss” or “the big guy” of Hezbollah — a not-so-veiled reference to then-Supreme Leader Hassan Nasrallah.

But it’s not just bitter leftists who oppose Gabbard. She’s also being opposed by various constituencies on the Right, from establishment Republicans to national security Republicans to Trump-hating Republicans. The editors of National Review, for example, vehemently oppose Gabbard, calling her “an atrocious nominee who deserves to be defeated.” They add:

Throughout her career, Gabbard has been ideologically hostile to the job she’s been selected for. She long opposed Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows us to monitor the communications of non-Americans located outside the United States. This is a little like a secretary of defense nominee being opposed to building tanks. Under pressure from Republican senators, she’s now converted on the issue, but that it took being desperate for confirmation votes for her to make her change is not comforting.

The good folks at National Review do not mention, though, that precisely this same FISA statute allowed the Obama administration to spy on the Trump campaign and, later, the Trump administration. Indeed, nowhere in National Review’s piece do they mention the words “politicization,” “weaponization,” or even “reform.”

It’s critical to remember that our intelligence services have been politicized and weaponized and that reform is needed. We should never forget Crossfire Hurricane, the Russia collusion hoax, or the Gang of 51 that tried to tell us — just prior to the 2020 election — that Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation.

Gabbard’s opening statement alludes to this: “President Trump’s reelection is a clear mandate from the American people to break this cycle of failure, end the weaponization and politicization of the IC, and begin to restore trust in those who have been charged with the critical task of securing our nation.”

On the other hand, Gabbard has some strong supporters. In a letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, a group of dozens of former intel officials urge the Senate to confirm Gabbard, saying she will “begin undoing the gross politicization that has come to characterize intelligence bureaucracies.” The undersigned include former National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell.

Chairman Cotton is a serious man, and his support seems crucial. “I’ve been working with her to move toward confirmation,” he said this morning, “and I look forward to working with her for four years.” Cotton added that the intel community “has grown too bloated, too bureaucratic, and doesn’t do enough collection of intelligence” and that it “focuses on way too many secondary priorities that are better served in other parts of the government.”

Regardless of what one thinks of the Gabbard nomination, one thing about Donald Trump’s cabinet picks is indisputable: They’re disruptors. Trump isn’t a fan of ideological groupthink. He’s picking great communicators, reformers, even bomb droppers. And, in the end, he’s the president, and he’s earned the right to build the team of his choice.

How tough will the Gabbard fight be? Oklahoma Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin, a strong Trump supporter, offered this insight: “I feel confident on Bobby [Kennedy at HHS]. I feel very confident on Kash [Patel at FBI]. I’m not as confident on my very good friend Tulsi. We’ve got some work to do. … It’s gonna be tough Thursday. We need to see her in the hearings. She’s got to perform really well.”

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