WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, faced fresh scrutiny Monday on Capitol Hill about her proximity to Russian-ally Syria amid the sudden collapse of that country’s hardline Assad rule.
Gabbard ignored shouted questions about her 2017 visit to war-torn Syria as she ducked into one of several private meetings with senators who are being asked to confirm Trump’s unusual nominees.
But the Democrat-turned-Republican Army National Reserve lieutenant colonel delivered a statement in which she reiterated her support for Trump’s America First approach to national security and a more limited U.S. military footprint overseas.
“I want to address the issue that’s in the headlines right now: I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has made over these last few days with regards to the developments in Syria,” Gabbard said exiting a Senate meeting.
Once a rising Democratic star, Gabbard, who represented Hawaii in Congress, arrived a decade ago in Washington, her surfboard in tow, a new generation of potential leaders. She ran unsuccessfully for president in 2020.
But Gabbard abruptly left the party and briefly became an independent before joining with Trump’s 2024 campaign as one of his enthusiasts, in large part over his disdain for U.S. involvement overseas and opposition to helping Ukraine battle Russia.
Her visit to Syria to meet with then-President Bashar Assad around the time of Trump’s first inauguration during the country’s bloody civil war stunned her former colleagues and the Washington national security establishment. The U.S. had severed diplomatic relations with Syria. Her visit was seen by some as legitimizing a brutal leader who was accused of war crimes.
Gabbard has defended the trip, saying it’s important to open dialogue, but critics hear in her commentary echoes of Russia-fueled talking points. Assad fled to Moscow over the weekend after Islamist rebels overtook Syria in a surprise attack, ending his family’s five decades of rule.
She said her own views have been shaped by “my multiple deployments and seeing firsthand the cost of war and the threat of Islamist terrorism.”
Gabbard said, “It’s one of the many reasons why I appreciate President Trump’s leadership and his election, where he is fully committed, as he has said over and over, to bring about an end to wars.”
Last week, the nearly 100 former officials, who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, said in the letter to Senate leaders they were “alarmed” by the choice of Gabbard to oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies.
They said her past actions “call into question her ability to deliver unbiased intelligence briefings to the President, Congress, and to the entire national security apparatus.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to coordinate the nation’s intelligence agencies and act as the president’s main intelligence adviser.