WASHINGTON – Nearly 100 former senior U.S. diplomats and intelligence and national security officials have urged Senate leaders to schedule closed-door hearings to allow for a full review of the government's files on former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump's pick to be national intelligence director.
The former officials, who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, said they were “alarmed” by the choice of Gabbard to oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. They said her past actions “call into question her ability to deliver unbiased intelligence briefings to the President, Congress, and to the entire national security apparatus.”
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A spokesperson for Gabbard on the Trump transition team on Thursday denounced the appeal as an “unfounded” and “partisan” attack.
Avril Haines, the current director of national intelligence, when asked Thursday whether intelligence sharing with allies could be in jeopardy under the next administration, cited the importance of those relationships and noted the strong bipartisan support for them in Congress.
The question, at a Council on Foreign Relations talk, focused on the especially close intelligence sharing among the Five Eyes — the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It did not mention Gabbard by name.
“It is hard for me to believe that anybody coming in wouldn’t want to maintain those relationships,” Haines said. “So I wouldn’t think of them as being in significant risk,” she added. “I certainly hope that will continue.”
Among those who signed the letter to Senate leaders were former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, former NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller, former national security adviser Anthony Lake, and numerous retired ambassadors and high-ranking military officers.
They wrote to current Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and incoming Republican Majority Leader John Thune on Wednesday to urge the closed briefings as part of the Senate's review of Trump's top appointments.
They requested that Senate committees “consider in closed sessions all information available to the U.S. government when considering Ms. Gabbard’s qualifications to manage our country’s intelligence agencies, and more importantly, the protection of our intelligence sources and methods.”
The letter singles out Gabbard's 2017 meetings in Syria with President Bashar Assad, who is supported by Russian, Iranian and Iranian-allied forces in a now 13-year war against Syrian opposition forces seeking his overthrow.
The U.S., which cut relations with Assad's government and imposed sanctions over his conduct of the war, maintains about 900 troops in opposition-controlled northeast Syria, saying they are needed to block a resurgence of extremist groups.
Gabbard, a Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii at the time of her Syria trip, drew heavy criticism for her meetings with a U.S. adversary and brutal leader.
As the letter notes, her statements on the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine have aligned with Russian talking points, diverging from U.S. positions and policy.
Gabbard throughout her political career has urged the U.S. to limit military engagement abroad other than combatting Islamic extremist groups. She has defended the Syria trip by saying it is necessary to engage with U.S. enemies.
In postings on social media earlier this year she confirmed that the U.S. had for a time placed her “on a secret terror watch list” as a “potential domestic terror threat.” She blamed political retaliation. Neither she nor U.S. authorities have publicly detailed the circumstances involved.
Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Gabbard with the Trump team, called the letter sent to the Senate leaders “a perfect example” of why Trump chose Gabbard for this position.
“These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence,’" and use classified government information as a "partisan weapon to smear and imply things about their political enemy," Henning said.
A spokesperson for Thune did not immediately respond to questions about the request.
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Associated Press writer Didi Tang contributed.