By Audrey Fahlberg | National Review
U.S. senators’ private concerns with Tulsi Gabbard’s history of unconventional national security views burst into public view on Thursday when the director of intelligence nominee — a former Hawaii congresswoman, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve — sat before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a tense confirmation hearing that did little to dispel the narrative that her path to confirmation remains narrow.
Senate Republicans have a 53-seat majority this Congress and Vice President JD Vance can break a tie in a confirmation vote on the floor. But she must first clear the Senate Intelligence Committee, where Republicans have a one-seat majority and a single defection could cost her a favorable recommendation from the panel. Gabbard’s public hearing on Thursday will be followed by a closed-door classified hearing.
Democrats and Republicans on the panel spent the hearing grilling Gabbard about her views on intelligence gathering tools like Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), as well as her 2017 trip to Syria as a then-congresswoman to meet with now-toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad. She also faced many questions Thursday about her characterization of then-president Donald Trump’s decision in 2020 to authorize the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani as an “illegal and unconstitutional act of war,” along with her decision to introduce legislation that same year calling for the federal government to “drop all charges” against infamous national security leaker Edward Snowden.