Tul­si Gabbard’s nom­i­na­tion for DNI met with skep­ti­cism from for­mer pro­gres­sive col­leagues

The for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­gress­woman-turned-Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for a key Trump admin­is­tra­tion role has worked close­ly with some of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors who could decide her fate dur­ing the con­fir­ma­tion process.

“I did work with her, and I did like her,” said Sen. Peter Welch (D‑VT), who spon­sored leg­is­la­tion while serv­ing in the House with Gab­bard in 2017.

“The Tul­si Gab­bard I worked with is Tul­si Gab­bard 4.0, so I have to fig­ure out who that is,” Welch told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er on Tues­day.

Welch said he would give her nom­i­na­tion fair con­sid­er­a­tion but had ques­tions about whether she was the right can­di­date to over­see 18 intel­li­gence agen­cies with a bud­get of about $70 bil­lion.

“I’m going to go through the process on all these nom­i­na­tions, and my ori­en­ta­tion is to give the ben­e­fit of the doubt to the president’s nom­i­nees, but not a blank check,” Welch said. “There’s a lot of sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions about Gab­bard in that job.”

Gab­bard, who served in the Hawaii Army Nation­al Guard and was deployed to Iraq with a med­ical unit, was known for her anti-inter­ven­tion­ist pol­i­tics and pop­ulist eco­nom­ics dur­ing her career in the House from 2013 to 2021.

Dur­ing the 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, she crit­i­cized the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee as being biased in favor of for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton. She earned much respect among left-wing activists when she resigned her posi­tion as DNC vice chair­woman to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders (I‑VT) for pres­i­dent and became a promi­nent sur­ro­gate who gave a nom­i­nat­ing speech at the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tion.

She was at odds with the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion in call­ing for the end of sup­port for Syria’s oppo­si­tion move­ment against Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Assad’s author­i­tar­i­an rule.

In 2017, Gab­bard trav­eled to Syr­ia and met Assad and accused the Unit­ed States of sup­port­ing ter­ror­ists there, anger­ing mem­bers of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty.

“It’s true, she cam­paigned on behalf of many Sen­ate Democ­rats when she was a young and promis­ing House Demo­c­rat,” a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­ate aide said on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty. “But, when she left the par­ty, I think many became dis­trust­ful of her and her motives, even if they share some of the same views on for­eign pol­i­cy.”

The for­mer 2020 pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, who dropped out and endorsed Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, announced she was leav­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in 2022. Last month, she announced she was join­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty at a Trump ral­ly in North Car­oli­na.

Gab­bard, 43, has since staked out a role as an out­spo­ken crit­ic of U.S. mil­i­tary inter­ven­tions over­seas and aid to Ukraine. Gab­bard has been accused of par­rot­ing Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da about the war, and state-run media in Moscow have praised her and even referred to her as a Russ­ian agent.

Sen. Eliz­a­beth War­ren (D‑MA) came out as a “hard no” on Gab­bard, point­ing out that her state­ments have often been at odds with the U.S. intel­li­gence community’s assess­ments and that her pre­vi­ous state­ments could lead to Russ­ian sym­pa­thiz­ing in the future.

“Do you real­ly want her to have all of the secrets of the Unit­ed States and our defense intel­li­gence agen­cies when she has so clear­ly been in Putin’s pock­et?” War­ren said dur­ing an inter­view on MSNBC over the week­end. “That just has to be a hard no.”

Tul­si Gab­bard has put her life on the line to defend this coun­try. Peo­ple can dis­agree on issues, but it is out­ra­geous for any­one to sug­gest that Tul­si is a for­eign asset.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) Octo­ber 21, 2019

Sens. Ed Markey (D‑MA) and Jeff Merkley (D‑OR) declined to say whether they would back Gab­bard when the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er asked their offices.

Gab­bard sup­port­ers resur­faced a social media post from Sanders in Octo­ber 2019, in which he defend­ed her and pushed back against claims that she is a for­eign asset.

“Tul­si Gab­bard has put her life on the line to defend this coun­try,” Sanders wrote in the post. “Peo­ple can dis­agree on issues, but it is out­ra­geous for any­one to sug­gest that Tul­si is a for­eign asset.”

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How­ev­er, that past defense may not trans­late to votes.

When asked whether he stood by his 2019 com­ments and if he could vote to sup­port her, Sanders respond­ed with “no com­ment” when asked twice by the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er on Mon­day and Tues­day.