Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has a consistent habit of trusting "foreign propaganda" over the very people she would lead as America's spymaster, making her wholly unqualified to be director of national intelligence, foreign policy columnist Josh Rogin wrote for The Washington Post.
This comes as Gabbard's nomination — one of several divisive picks, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for attorney general, Fox News host Pete Hegseth for the Pentagon, and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the Department of Health and Human Services — causes outrage among intelligence experts.
Gabbard has made more than her fair share of enemies, wrote Rogin.
"She has been accused of being a 'Russian asset,' a 'useful idiot' and even 'Russia’s girlfriend.' Hillary Clinton once suggested Moscow was 'grooming' Gabbard to run for president. In 2022, Republican Adam Kinzinger, at the time a representative of Illinois, called her 'traitorous.'"
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There's no evidence Moscow is using Gabbard, wrote Rogin — but the fact remains "the head of the U.S. intelligence community must be willing and able to distinguish between democracies and autocracies, and separate propaganda from reality."
"Gabbard’s record shows she consistently fails to do both," he said. "Indeed, Gabbard is dangerous precisely because she doesn’t need any outside influence to come to her conspiratorial, dictator-friendly worldview. The problem is not that Gabbard’s views are unconventional. It’s that her long-standing pattern of embracing and amplifying Russian propaganda speaks to her poor judgment and tenuous allegiance to the truth."
Gabbard has at various points taken Russian President Vladimir Putin's line that the invasion of Ukraine was provoked by NATO aggression, and even pushed Russian-originated conspiracy theories that the dictator of Syria didn't use chemical weapons on his own people. Moreover, wrote Rogin, "her antipathy toward America’s democratic allies is simply reflexive" — she has even attacked Japan for remilitarizing in response to rising Chinese aggression.
All of this would be dangerous in an intelligence chief, wrote Rogin, because the people gathering intelligence need to know their work product will be trusted, and not fear being purged for disagreeing with conspiracy theories.
"Gabbard’s nomination should be rejected not because her views are different from the D.C. establishment, but because they’re incompatible with the requirements of the job," wrote Rogin. "In the intelligence world, sound judgment and a firm grasp of reality are essential. Tulsi Gabbard has shown us, repeatedly, that she lacks both."