Trump’s Intelligence Pick Tulsi Gabbard Under Scrutiny for Russian and Hindu Nationalist Ties

On 21 Novem­ber 2024, Slate report­ed that Pres­i­dent-elect Trump’s nom­i­na­tion of Tul­si Gab­bard as direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence faces oppo­si­tion due to her con­nec­tions with both Russ­ian inter­ests and Hin­du nation­al­ist groups, par­tic­u­lar­ly her long-stand­ing ties to orga­ni­za­tions affil­i­at­ed with Indi­a’s rul­ing par­ty. The arti­cle begins:

Tul­si Gab­bard’s pro-Rus­sia polit­i­cal bent has been the cause of much alarm in the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty ever since Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump chose her to be his direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence. Because, sure, she lacks any rel­e­vant expe­ri­ence what­so­ev­er for the job, a gar­gan­tu­an respon­si­bil­i­ty that requires over­sight of 18 intel­li­gence agen­cies. But she also takes posi­tions that make her seem, well, com­pro­mised by for­eign gov­ern­ments. For exam­ple, she has a ten­den­cy to espouse for­eign-pol­i­cy talk­ing points that very much align with Krem­lin pro­pa­gan­da, often with the help of her pal Tuck­er Carl­son. She has blamed the U.S. for sup­pos­ed­ly pro­vok­ing Rus­si­a’s inva­sion of Ukraine and posit­ed that the Biden admin­is­tra­tion is devel­op­ing “bio­labs” in the invad­ed ter­ri­to­ry. She is weird­ly into Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Assad, hav­ing once held a pri­vate meet­ing with the strong­man and refus­ing to ever admit that he did, in fact, repeat­ed­ly attack and kill his own peo­ple with assis­tance from the Russians…

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Key Points:

1. Gab­bard has exten­sive con­nec­tions to Sangh Pari­var, a net­work of Hin­du nation­al­ist orga­ni­za­tions seek­ing to influ­ence pol­i­cy in mul­ti­ple countries.
2. Despite no South Asian her­itage, she has con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ed and appeared at events for Hin­du nation­al­ist groups and Mod­i’s government.
3. Her posi­tions on inter­na­tion­al issues often align with both Russ­ian state media nar­ra­tives and Hin­du nation­al­ist talk­ing points.
4. Intel­li­gence offi­cials express con­cern about poten­tial vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to manip­u­la­tion by both Russ­ian and Indi­an gov­ern­ment interests.