Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was confirmed by the Senate to the position of director of national intelligence.
Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has been confirmed by the Senate to the position of Director of National Intelligence.
Gabbard was confirmed in a 52–48 vote on Feb. 12 and will move immediately to assume her responsibilities in the nation’s top intelligence role.
The confirmation follows a contentious few weeks of debate over Gabbard’s qualifications and judgment, in which lawmakers from both sides of the aisle questioned her ability to lead the intelligence community before voting along party lines.
Leading intelligence Democrats voted against Gabbard’s nomination, saying that the former congresswoman’s history of speaking favorably of hostile foreign powers raised questions about her ability to discern key intelligence matters.
Those criticisms largely center on Gabbard’s history of suggesting NATO is to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and her questioning of whether chemical weapons were used in the Syrian Civil War.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said that, though he appreciated Gabbard’s service, he believed she had demonstrated poor judgment in political and national security matters and that her nomination would ultimately weaken the nation’s intelligence community.
“Over and over and over again, when she has the opportunity to support the interests of the United States … versus those of our adversaries, time and time again she picks our adversaries,” Bennet said on the Senate floor.
Conversely, Senate Republicans championed Gabbard’s willingness to take on what they see as an entrenched bureaucratic class within the intelligence community that too frequently does not work with Americans’ best interests in mind.
“I know Tulsi will be committed to protecting all Americans at this pivotal moment in American history,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said.
“The intelligence community needs to refocus on its core mission: collecting intelligence and providing unbiased analysis of that information,” he added.
Gabbard has frequently criticized the various intelligence agencies that she will now oversee, accusing the intelligence community of “bureaucratic mission-creep and empire-building” during her first confirmation hearing.
