There is cause for concern when the candidate for the post of director of American national intelligence is praised by the Russian media. Tulsi Gabbard is “our girl,” a popular host said in 2022. She is a “superwoman” recently wrote a press organ, a “comrade” added a TV channel. As for the Komsomolskaya Pravda, she noted with approval that Ukrainians viewed her “as an agent of the Russian state.” “The CIA and FBI are trembling,” the newspaper proclaimed. And for once, there is a grain of truth. Even though there is no proof that she is in the pay of the Kremlin, the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard, 43, has set the intelligence world in turmoil. It is “very problematic,” summarizes Christopher McKnight Nichols, professor at Ohio State University and specialist in security issues.
“All her positions go against those displayed by the organizations she is supposed to oversee.” The position of Director of Intelligence (DNI) was created in 2004 with the aim of correcting the mistakes that led to the September 11 attacks, notably the lack of cooperation between different agencies. Its role is to coordinate the 18 intelligence services and centralize their analyses. If Tulsi Gabbard is confirmed by the Senate, she will have access to all state secrets. She will also be responsible for preparing daily briefings for the White House and advising the president on threats to national security. Hence a huge influence.
A penchant for misinformation
This surf and yoga fan from the American Samoa Islands is a curious choice. Besides her penchant for disinformation and autocrats, she has never led a federal organization and has little experience in espionage, security or diplomacy. What does it matter! Loyalty counts more than skills for Donald Trump who appreciates his atypical career path. After growing up in Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard was elected to the state congress at the age of 21 under the Democratic banner. She then enlisted in the National Guard and was sent to Iraq in 2004, then to Kuwait.
In 2013, she won a seat in the House of Representatives. Of Hindu faith, she is married to a cameraman who has close ties, like her and her entire family, to the Science of Identity Foundation, a group with troubled finances derived from the Hare Krishna sect and led by a very controversial white guru. In 2020, this telegenic brunette with a strong voice ran in the Democratic primaries with a progressive program. After her failure, she left the party judging it to be dominated by “an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokism”, she wrote in her Memoirs. She became a commentator on Fox News, the right-wing channel, and transformed herself into a virulent Trumpist, so much so that Donald Trump considered making her his running mate.
In announcing his appointment, the latter praised his “intrepid spirit”. But this choice, like that of the flamboyant Kash Patel at the head of the FBI – the current director Christopher Wray announced yesterday that he would resign in January -, testifies above all to the aversion of the future president towards his services of information. He accuses them of having plotted to torpedo his presidential campaigns and his first term. In Helsinki in 2018, when asked if he believed the analysis of American specialists according to which Moscow had interfered in the 2016 elections to get him elected, he responded astonishingly that he had more confidence to the leader of the Kremlin. “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it should be Russia,” he said.
Opposed to military interventions
In Tulsi Gabbard, he found a kindred spirit with equally iconoclastic and isolationist views. Perhaps because of her time in Iraq, she is fiercely opposed to American military interventions which “put us on the brink of nuclear war,” she repeats. While in the House, the Hawaii representative became known for her attacks on Barack Obama’s Syria policies. She accused him of helping rebel groups fighting against the bloodthirsty regime of President Bashar al-Assad, linked to Iran and Russia, whom she went to meet secretly in Baghdad. Faced with criticism, she replied that “we should be prepared to talk to any individual if there is a chance of helping to end this conflict.” And she said she was “skeptical” that the chemical weapons attack against the civilian population was ordered by Assad.
He “is not the enemy of the United States,” she said. She was again noted for her pro-Putin positions at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Democratic defector tweeted that the war could have been “easily avoided” if the Biden administration and NATO had “simply recognized Russia’s legitimate security concerns.” Some time later, she posted a video repeating a conspiracy theory propagated by Moscow according to which the United States was financing dozens of biological laboratories in Ukraine capable of releasing deadly pathogens.
Even more worrying for the FBI, CIA and other agencies, it sees them as Big Brothers and doesn’t have much respect for their activities. In 2020, just before she left the House, Tulsi Gabbard introduced a bill to eliminate the Patriot Act that expanded the government’s surveillance powers after the September 11 attacks. She also pushed to pass – without success – a measure intended to protect federal agents who alert the media to secret programs or reports. Finally, she campaigned for the dropping of charges against Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, responsible for two of the biggest leaks in American history. Not quite to the taste of his future colleagues.
End the law that allows electronic surveillance
As DNI, she could try to reform information collection and end the law that allows electronic surveillance. But “she is a controversial figure, and given her positions on the capacity of the intelligence services, she risks facing a significant challenge in carrying out her task effectively,” said Jamil Jaffer, the director and founder of the National Security Institute at George Mason University.
This promises tensions between the different agencies, hesitant to communicate their data and their sources. Experts also anticipate friction between Tulsi Gabbard, Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio, respectively future National Security Advisor and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and many more hawks. “The fact that Trump’s nominees disagree on the role of the United States in the world will complicate matters,” observes James Lindsay of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “The foreign policy of the second administration can be expected to be even more chaotic and turbulent than the first.” Christopher McKnight Nichols is especially concerned about international cooperation.
“Intelligence agencies around the world are looking at the United States with apprehension,” he continues. He fears that “the allies will limit the exchange of information for fear that the Trump administration will divulge their secrets and that the United States will act the same. Without this collaboration, many countries, including France, will be more at risk. terrorism risk.” Jamil Jaffer is more reassuring: “Europe obtains much more from the United States than what it provides them in terms of intelligence”, given the scale of American capabilities. “It would therefore not be advantageous for European services not to share their knowledge with us.”
Tulsi Gabbard is far from unanimous, including in the Republican camp. “This is not a position for a sympathizer of the Russian, Iranian, Syrian and Chinese causes,” said Nikki Haley, Trump’s former ambassador to the UN. “You really want her to receive all the secrets of the United States… when she has clearly been in Putin’s pocket”?, exclaimed Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator. Does she have a chance of being confirmed by the Senate? She will be subjected to “a lot of questions,” Republican Senator James Lankford admitted on CNN. “It’s really important that we have leadership in this position that can support” intelligence. It remains to be seen whether Tulsi Gabbard shares the same opinion.
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