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Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, is expected to get a grilling from Senate Intelligence Committee members Thursday on her controversial record on national security, including her 2017 meetings with then Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
Gabbard, a former Democrat who represented Hawaii in the House, is seeking to solidify enough Republican support to carry her to confirmation. If confirmed, she would lead an intelligence office that spans 18 agencies and organizations. She would advise Trump, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council on intelligence matters.
Some lawmakers have also criticized her support for Edward Snowden, an intelligence contractor who in 2013 disclosed the NSA’s information-gathering programs.
Snowden, who fled to Russia, disclosed details on the use of Section 702 of a law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the federal government to collect non-U.S. citizens’ communications outside the country without a warrant and has at times ensnared U.S. citizens. Congress overhauled the law in 2024.
The Senate hearing could also be an early roadmap for the intelligence agenda of Trump’s second term.
Gabbard is one of Trump’s most controversial nominees. She’s relatively new to the GOP. Her rightward pivot in 2022, when she left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent, could affect some Republicans’ views.
“I’ll let you know after the hearing,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a panel member, said when asked about Gabbard’s prospects.
Republicans’ 9-8 panel majority means one GOP defection could tank Gabbard’s prospects for committee support if all the Democrats oppose her. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., could still bring Gabbard’s nomination up for a floor vote without the panel’s backing.
Senate Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., blamed Democrats for the questions about Gabbard. But conservative publications, including The Wall Street Journal editorial page, are also skeptics.
“For years, they have questioned her patriotism,” Cotton said on Fox Business Wednesday. “This is a woman who served 21 years in uniform, who’s passed five background checks — I reviewed the latest one last week, it’s clean as a whistle — so there’s no end to what the Democrats will manufacture as baseless claims or procedural stalling tactics for these nominees.”
Gabbard’s record
Gabbard’s January 2017 meetings with Assad are expected to be one focus of the hearing. She met with Assad after he had been accused of using chemical weapons on his own people. Those meetings have loomed over her political career since, with questions still remaining about the discussion between them.
Gabbard said the U.S. focus should have been on combating the Islamic State militant group rather than change the Syrian regime. She said she was seeking a peaceful resolution to an ongoing conflict, but critics accused her of voicing the talking points of U.S. adversaries such as Russia, one of Assad’s allies.
The U.S. didn’t have an active policy of regime change in Syria, but put the country under strict sanctions because of the regime’s attacks on its own people. Trump, in his first term, launched air strikes against a Syrian airbase.
In the weeks since Trump named Gabbard for the DNI, Assad was overthrown and has gone into exile in Russia. In her intelligence post, she would have a chance to shape U.S. involvement in a country led by a group that the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.
Gabbard’s criticism of Section 702, though she has walked it back, has also drawn criticism. She was a prominent House opponent of the provision, saying the statute needed change because it allowed Americans to get caught up in surveillance of foreign targets. She described the policy as “illegal warrantless surveillance” in 2020.
In 2020, Gabbard, along with former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., called for a pardon of Snowden. And she introduced a resolution calling the surveillance program “illegal and unconstitutional.” The resolution didn’t make it out of committee.
But she supported Section 702 after her nomination.
“If confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people,” Gabbard told Punchbowl News earlier this month, adding that “significant FISA reforms” have taken place since her time in Congress.
Gabbard entered the House in 2013. She’s a combat veteran who served in the Army National Guard for more than two decades and was the first Hindu member elected to Congress.
She established an independent streak, becoming the first Democratic lawmaker to meet with Trump after he won his first term in the White House. She announced in 2019 that she would not seek reelection so she could pursue a bid for the presidency.
Gabbard styled herself as an anti-establishment candidate. She stayed in the race until March 2020, lasting longer than higher-profile candidates who were polling with more support.
Even during that run, Gabbard hinted at her eventual rightward tilt when she broke with the party and voted “present” on a pair of 2019 articles of impeachment against Trump. But she supported President Joe Biden in the 2020 race.
Gabbard has also criticized what she described as the weaponization of the federal government. In February 2023 testimony to a House Judiciary subcommittee, she decried a “culture of fear” in America and criticized a “cozy relationship between White House officials, the FBI and big tech.”
Gabbard’s qualms with the federal government echo Trump’s criticism. If confirmed, she would also be responsible for seeing out part of an executive order Trump signed Jan. 20 laying out a process to ensure accountability for “the previous administration’s weaponization of the Federal Government against the American people.”
That order tasks the director of National Intelligence with reviewing “the activities of the Intelligence Community over the last 4 years and [identifying] any instances where the Intelligence Community’s conduct appears to have been contrary to the purposes and policies of this order.”
Shoring up support
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the third-ranking Senate Intelligence Republican, is among those reported to have hesitations about Gabbard.
Along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Collins voted against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s confirmation. Vice President JD Vance provided a tie-breaking confirmation vote.
At least four Republican opponents would be needed to sink Gabbard’s confirmation on the floor as long as the Democrats and independents vote against her.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who isn’t on the Intelligence panel, said he wants to see Gabbard’s responses to questions on Syria and Snowden.
“I tend to vote for almost everybody at both parties, but I want to see how the hearing goes,” Graham said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday. “Why did you go to Syria? What did you do regarding Assad? Why do you think Edward Snowden should be held as a hero? I certainly don’t. We’ll see how the hearing goes.”
Democrats look solidly opposed.
Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., said his worries haven’t been addressed.
“Same thing I’ve said before: I had a lot of questions going in. I had a lot of questions after my meeting with her,” he said Wednesday.
The Trump administration is projecting confidence about her confirmation. Vance said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he’s “confident that Tulsi Gabbard will ultimately get through.”
“She is a career military servant who’s had a classification at the highest levels for nearly two decades,” Vance said. “She has impeccable character, impeccable record of service, and she also is a person who I think is going to bring some trust back to the intelligence services.”