Tul­si Gab­bard advances out of Intel Com­mit­tee in boost to con­fir­ma­tion odds

Tul­si Gab­bard passed a key com­mit­tee hur­dle on Tues­day, and her nom­i­na­tion will now head to the Sen­ate floor where she’ll get a final con­fir­ma­tion vote. 

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump tapped Gab­bard, a for­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­gress­woman, to be Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence (DNI) in his sec­ond term. 

“I’m pleased that the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee vot­ed to advance the nom­i­na­tion of Tul­si Gab­bard to be the Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence. Once con­firmed, I look for­ward to work­ing with Ms. Gab­bard to keep Amer­i­ca safe and to bring bad­ly need­ed reforms to the Office of the Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence,” Sen­ate Select Com­mit­tee on Intel­li­gence Chair­man Tom Cot­ton, R‑Ark., said in a state­ment. 

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Gab­bard was advanced out of the com­mit­tee along par­ty lines, 9–8.

She received a last-minute endorse­ment from Sen. Mike Rounds, R‑S.D., a mem­ber of the com­mit­tee, min­utes after the vote was sched­uled to get under­way.

“I will be vot­ing today for [Gab­bard] to serve as Pres­i­dent Trump’s Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence. I’ve had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with Tul­si through­out the con­fir­ma­tion process, and I’m con­fi­dent she will bring a fresh per­spec­tive to Pres­i­dent Trump’s nation­al secu­ri­ty team and the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. Tul­si and Pres­i­dent Trump have my sup­port,” he wrote on X. 

Some issues the nom­i­nee has been pressed on dur­ing her con­fir­ma­tion process are her past meet­ing with for­mer Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Assad, her pre­vi­ous FISA Sec­tion 702 stance and her past sup­port for NSA whistle­blow­er Edward Snow­den

She faced ques­tions about each in her hear­ing last week. 

Gab­bard man­aged to impress some Repub­li­cans on the Intel com­mit­tee with her answers, as both Sens. John Cornyn, R‑Texas, and Susan Collins, R‑Maine, revealed after­ward that they would vote to advance her. 

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Sen. James Lank­ford, R‑Okla., endorsed Trump’s DNI nom­i­nee last month after she announced her changed beliefs about sec­tion 702, a crit­i­cal and con­tro­ver­sial intel­li­gence gath­er­ing tool. 

He reit­er­at­ed this sup­port after her hear­ing. 

How­ev­er, there were remain­ing ques­tions about cer­tain sen­a­tors up until the com­mit­tee’s closed-door vote on Tues­day. Sen. Todd Young, R‑Ind., is one of the law­mak­ers that did not dis­close how he would vote until hours before. 

In a state­ment to Fox News Dig­i­tal on Tues­day, the sen­a­tor said, “Amer­i­can intel­li­gence offi­cers around the globe deserve our respect and sup­port. I appre­ci­ate Tul­si Gabbard’s engage­ment with me on a vari­ety of issues to ensure that our intel­li­gence pro­fes­sion­als will be sup­port­ed and pol­i­cy­mak­ers will receive unbi­ased infor­ma­tion under her lead­er­ship.”

“I have done what the Framers envi­sioned for sen­a­tors to do: use the con­sul­ta­tive process to seek firm com­mit­ments, in this case com­mit­ments that will advance our nation­al secu­ri­ty, which is my top pri­or­i­ty as a for­mer Marine Corps intel­li­gence offi­cer. Hav­ing now secured these com­mit­ments, I will sup­port Tulsi’s nom­i­na­tion and look for­ward to work­ing with her to pro­tect our nation­al secu­ri­ty,” he added. 

In a since-delet­ed post on X the week­end pri­or, Trump-aligned bil­lion­aire Elon Musk slammed Young as a “deep state pup­pet” in regard to his uncer­tain­ty about Gab­bard. 

But the two seemed to patch things up on a phone call soon after.

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A spokesper­son for Young told Fox News Dig­i­tal in a state­ment, “Sen­a­tor Young and Mr. Musk had a great con­ver­sa­tion on a num­ber of sub­jects and pol­i­cy areas where they have a shared inter­est, like DOGE.”

Musk also shared on X over the week­end, “Just had an excel­lent con­ver­sa­tion with [Young]. I stand cor­rect­ed. Sen­a­tor Young will be a great ally in restor­ing pow­er to the peo­ple from the vast, unelect­ed bureau­cra­cy.”