Senate confirms Gabbard to serve as nation’s top intelligence chief

The Senate voted largely along party lines Wednesday to confirm Tulsi Gabbard to serve as the director of national intelligence, the nation’s top intelligence official, despite strong objections from Democrats and initial misgivings from Republicans who questioned her experience and judgment.

The 52-48 vote caps two months of deliberations in the Senate over whether Gabbard, a former House Democrat from Hawaii, is qualified to lead the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies and prepare President Trump’s daily intelligence brief.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was the only GOP "no" vote.

Republican senators had raised concerns about her views of the expanded surveillance authority granted by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which Gabbard sought to repeal when she served in the House, and her past statements about deposed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Democratic and Republican senators, including Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.), grilled Gabbard about whether she viewed former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden as a traitor. She refused to call him that, despite his theft of 1.5 million classified documents, which left Republican senators frustrated.

Republican senators also said Gabbard struggled to answer their questions in their private meetings, and some GOP lawmakers, notably Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), initially questioned whether she had really come to accept and support the powers authorized by FISA’s Section 702, which provides about 60 percent of the intelligence in the president’s daily brief.

Yet, Republicans rallied behind Gabbard in recent weeks thanks to the intervention of Vice President Vance, who helped reassure Young about her nomination, and the steadfast support of Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

Gabbard is seen as a “disruptor” in the mold of other Trump nominees, such as Pete Hegseth, who was confirmed last month to lead the Pentagon. Trump allies say she will shake up the nation’s intelligence community, which they claim has become “weaponized” against Trump.

Trump allies have repeatedly pointed to the open letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials who claimed that a report about incriminating information found on Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 presidential campaign was likely the product of a “Russian influence operation.”

Vance held multiple conversations with Young, a former Marine intelligence officer, between Gabbard’s rocky confirmation hearing and her vote in committee.

Every Republican on the Intelligence panel voted to send her nomination to the floor, giving it strong momentum. That set up a 52-46 vote Monday to tee up a final confirmation vote, with all Republicans present voting to advance her.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) hailed Gabbard as a “patriot, motivated by service” who has served her country and community since age 21 when she was elected to the Hawaii state Legislature.

“Tulsi Gabbard has worn the uniform of our country for the last 22 years, leading American soldiers in some of the most dangerous parts of the world,” he said, also noting her eight years of service in Congress as a member of the House Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees.

Democrats argued that Gabbard is not qualified to serve as the nation’s top intelligence boss and has shown tremendous lapses in judgment by disputing a finding by the U.S. intelligence community that Assad, the former Syrian president, had used chemical weapons against his own people and by echoing Putin’s rationale for invading Ukraine.

“By any objective measure and by every objective measure as well, she is not qualified. From the moment she was nominated, both Democrats and Republicans were puzzled by the choice,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said on the floor before her vote.

“Of all people Donald Trump could have picked to oversee national intelligence, he picked someone known for repeating Russian propaganda and getting duped by conspiracy theories,” he said.

Schumer said Gabbard would likely only get 10 votes in the Senate if her confirmation vote was held by secret ballot.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, said Gabbard had “demonstrated she’s not up to the task” of representing tens of thousands of intelligence officials around the world, pointing to her support of Assad’s claim that he didn’t use chemical weapons despite U.S. intelligence findings to the contrary.

He argued that she “knowingly met with the Syrian cleric who threatened to conduct serial bomb attacks against the United States” and “sought to blame the United States and NATO” for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, by asserting the Biden administration failed to take seriously Putin’s concern about Ukraine joining NATO.

Republican senators have come under tremendous pressure to support Trump’s most controversial nominees, such as Gabbard, Hegseth, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom the Senate will vote on this week to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Tuesday called Gabbard’s nomination “part of a pattern of unilateral disarmament by the Trump administration against Russia.”

He cited a Washington Post article from November that reported Gabbard’s appointment as head of national intelligence had “elicited the most excitement in Russia because she has long been regarded as a darling of the propagandist Russian R.T. network.”

“Russian TV has called Ms. Gabbard ‘our friend Tulsi.’ [A] Russian newspaper published an op-ed, and it was titled the CIA and FBI are trembling [that] Trump protégé Tulsi Gabbard will support Russia,” he said on the floor.

But Cotton, one of the most respected voices on national security in the Senate GOP conference, pushed back on criticism and warned colleagues at her confirmation hearing not to question her patriotism or integrity.

“Let me remind everyone that Ms. Gabbard has served in our Army for more than two decades, she has multiple combat tours, and she still wears the uniform today. She has undergone five FBI background checks,” he said at the start of her hearing.

One of the biggest obstacles to Gabbard’s nomination was her sponsorship of legislation during her final year in the House to repeal FISA’s Section 702, which grants intelligence agencies broad powers to eavesdrop on foreign targets. Gabbard in past called the expanded authority an “overreach.”

But she changed her characterization of the law in private meetings with GOP senators, explaining that her position had changed because of reforms made to the program.

Lankford, a member of the Intelligence panel, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month that he decided to support Gabbard after she clarified to him that she would now support Section 702 authority in light of recent changes. She pledged to maintain the program, calling it a “vital” national security tool.

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