The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday voted 9-8 to back President Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, clearing an important hurdle for her nomination.
The committee’s action opens the way for the full Senate to decide if Gabbard should be confirmed as the country’s top-ranking intelligence official.
“I’m pleased that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., chair of the intelligence committee, said in a statement. “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.”
At her confirmation hearing last week, Gabbard had faced pointed questions from some Republicans about her stances on Edward Snowden and the controversial surveillance program he helped expose. The questioning fueled speculation about whether Gabbard would win the backing of the committee, where Republicans have a 9-8 majority.
Gabbard had previously called for Snowden to be pardoned but reversed herself at the hearing, saying she would not seek a pardon or clemency for the former National Security Agency contractor accused of espionage. She also softened her position on the government’s surveillance authorities under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, saying she viewed them as an important tool.
Before the committee vote, which came in a closed-door session, two Republican senators on the panel who had been seen as potential “no” votes made it clear that they would back Gabbard.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Monday that Gabbard had addressed her concerns about Snowden and that she would vote for her. On Tuesday, hours before the vote, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., said he would be voting for Gabbard after she provided “commitments that will advance our national security.”
Snowden was a contractor for the NSA in 2013 when he leaked a ream of secret information exposing details of America’s global surveillance operations. Snowden, who fled the country and resettled in Russia, has been indicted on espionage charges.
Gabbard, a former congresswoman from Hawaii who once ran for the Democratic presidential nomination before leaving the party and backing Trump, had sidestepped specific questions at her confirmation hearing from Republican lawmakers about her views on the Section 702 surveillance program.
When the full Senate takes up her confirmation, Gabbard could afford to lose up to three Republican votes, assuming no Democrats vote for her. It’s unclear if there are four Republicans prepared to vote against her nomination, but the committee vote has been viewed as the biggest obstacle for her.
As director of national intelligence, a position created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Gabbard would oversee 18 intelligence agencies with a budget of about $100 billion and serve as the principal adviser to the president on intelligence matters.
As a presidential candidate, a member of Congress and a commentator supporting Trump’s campaign, Gabbard has been accused of echoing propaganda spread by Russia and the former Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, including questioning U.S. intelligence assessments that the Syrian government had carried out multiple chemical weapons attacks on its own people.
At the hearing last week, Gabbard rejected criticism that she has sided with U.S. adversaries and said it was outrageous to question her loyalty to the United States given her career in the Army and in politics.
She maintains she is coming under attack for questioning Washington’s national security establishment and opposing U.S. military “regime change” interventions, including the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
At the hearing last week, Gabbard she was not “Putin’s puppet” or “Assad’s puppet,” or anyone else’s.
“The fact is what truly unsettles my political opponents is I refuse to be their puppet,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard, who served in the Hawaii Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq with a medical unit, has long criticized American foreign policy as imperial and heavy-handed.
The Republican majority on the committee backed Gabbard after she reversed or shifted her positions not only on Snowden and the foreign intelligence surveillance program but the cause of the war in Ukraine and Trump’s decision in 2020 to order a U.S. drone strike against top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
Gabbard has suggested that NATO was to blame for triggering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But at the hearing last week, she said: “Putin started the war in Ukraine.”
After the U.S. strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad, Gabbard had sharply criticized the action as reckless and illegal. But at her hearing, she said Trump had taken the right action.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
