Trump’s Intel Chief Pick Tulsi Gabbard Draws Scrutiny Over Russian Media Support

On 18 Novem­ber 2024, The New York Times report­ed that Pres­i­dent-elect Trump’s nom­i­na­tion of Tul­si Gab­bard as direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence has raised sig­nif­i­cant con­cern among secu­ri­ty offi­cials due to her his­to­ry of echo­ing Krem­lin talk­ing points and fre­quent favor­able cov­er­age in Russ­ian state media. The arti­cle begins:

In 2017, when she was still a Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­ber of Con­gress, Tul­si Gab­bard trav­eled to Syr­ia and met the coun­try’s author­i­tar­i­an pres­i­dent, Bashar al-Assad. She also accused the Unit­ed States of sup­port­ing ter­ror­ists there. The day after Vladimir V. Putin began a full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine in 2022, Ms. Gab­bard blamed the Unit­ed States and NATO for pro­vok­ing the war by ignor­ing Rus­si­a’s secu­ri­ty con­cerns. She has since sug­gest­ed that the Unit­ed States covert­ly worked with Ukraine on dan­ger­ous bio­log­i­cal pathogens and was cul­pa­ble for the bomb­ing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Rus­sia to Ger­many in Sep­tem­ber 2022. Euro­pean pros­e­cu­tors and U.S. offi­cials say that sab­o­tage was car­ried out by Ukrain­ian oper­a­tives. Ms. Gab­bard’s com­ments have earned her sharp rebukes from offi­cials across the polit­i­cal spec­trum in Wash­ing­ton, who have accused her of par­rot­ing the anti-Amer­i­can pro­pa­gan­da of the coun­try’s adver­saries. Her remarks have also made her a dar­ling of the Krem­lin’s vast state media appa­ra­tus — and, more recent­ly, of Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald J. Trump…

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Key Points:

1. Russ­ian state media has enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly embraced Gab­bard’s nom­i­na­tion, with one out­let not­ing that “CIA and FBI are trem­bling” at her appointment.
2. If con­firmed, Gab­bard would over­see intel­li­gence brief­in­gs for Trump and mon­i­tor the same Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion she’s been accused of amplifying.
3. Her polit­i­cal evo­lu­tion includes shift­ing from Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date in 2020 to becom­ing a paid Fox News con­trib­u­tor and Trump supporter.
4. Nation­al secu­ri­ty offi­cials express con­cern about her lack of intel­li­gence expe­ri­ence and ten­den­cy to mir­ror Krem­lin geopo­lit­i­cal perspectives.