Trump's Nominee for Director of National Intelligence Suspected of “Pro-Russian Sentiments”

World

Around 100 former U.S. diplomats, intelligence, and national security officials have called on the Senate to hold closed-door sessions regarding Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence. The reason – Tulsi Gabbard’s alleged “sympathy for dictators like Vladimir Putin and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad,” among other issues.

Trump's Nominee for Director of National Intelligence Suspected of “Pro-Russian Sentiments”
In an open letter, these officials accused Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and Hawaii representative, of lacking experience in the intelligence field, supporting conspiracy theories regarding Russia’s 2022 large-scale invasion of Ukraine, and forging close ties with Russian and Syrian officials following an “uncoordinated” meeting with Assad in Damascus in 2017.

The letter was signed by high-ranking officials, including former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, former NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller, former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, ambassadors, intelligence officers, and military officials.

The letter urged the Senate to vet the nominee, hold hearings, and follow due process. It also called on Senate committees to review “all available information” in closed sessions to safeguard “intelligence sources and methods.”

Gabbard and her supporters dismissed the criticism as a smear campaign, claiming her anti-interventionist stance on Syria and Ukraine has been misrepresented by her political opponents.

Gabbard’s spokesperson Alexa Henning responded to ABC News, stating: “These baseless attacks come from the same so-called experts whose faulty ‘intelligence’ has caused bloodshed for decades and who use classified government information as a ‘partisan weapon’ to smear political opponents.”

Activists told The Guardian that bipartisan staffers raised concerns during a 2018 hearing involving a Syrian military whistleblower that Gabbard might reveal the person’s identity. A source familiar with high-level intelligence discussions also expressed worries about her other connections in the region.

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