Former US officials alarmed over Tulsi Gabbard’s alleged ‘sympathy for dictators’

Officials blast Trump’s national intelligence director pick for lack of experience and embracing conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories and cosying up to dictators: why intelligence experts are spooked by Tulsi Gabbard

Nearly 100 former US diplomats and intelligence and national security officials have called for the Senate to hold closed-door briefings on Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence for her alleged “sympathy for dictators like Vladimir Putin and [Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad]” and other concerns.

In an open letter, the officials blasted Tulsi Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and representative from Hawaii, for her lack of experience in the field of intelligence, embracing conspiracy theories regarding the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, and “aligning herself with Russian and Syrian officials” after an “uncoordinated” meeting with Assad in Damascus in 2017.

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