Headlines are about Biden’s Hunter pardon and transgender bathroom issues, and Donald Trump is winning again. Until the fall of Syria’s Assad regime, I had never heard a single reporter talk in depth about Tulsi Gabbard, the terrifying person President Trump had nominated to be Director of National Intelligence. If she is indeed confirmed, this appointment would be a disaster for the United States.
The Director of National Intelligence is a Cabinet-level official, mandated by the Directorate of National Intelligence. Information Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 Serves as executive director of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), directing and overseeing national intelligence programs. All 18 IC agencies, including the CIA, DIA, and NSA, report directly to the DNI.
In that capacity, she would serve as a key advisor to President Trump, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council on all intelligence matters, if he so desired. She will be involved in the preparation of the President’s daily brief, which is a classified document and includes information from all IC agencies.
Over the years, the role of the DNI has become even stronger. President George W. Bush did so with an executive order that strengthened the DNI’s legal authority to direct intelligence collection and analysis, set policies for information sharing with foreign agencies, and the hiring and firing of senior intelligence officials. In 2012, President Obama gave the DNI greater responsibility.
This clearly indicates that President Trump may change the authority of the DNI with further executive orders. I’m concerned, given how cavalier he was with state secrets.
Ms. Gabbard has no actual experience in the intelligence community. Unlike her predecessors, she does not hold a high-level government position. She served on the House Homeland Security Committee for two years. Even more frightening is her relationship with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad. According to new york times “In 2017, when she was still a Democratic congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard traveled to Syria and met with the country’s authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad. He accused them of supporting him. …A day after President Vladimir V. Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ms. Gabbard accused the United States and NATO of provoking war by ignoring Russia’s security concerns. Since then, she has discovered that the United States It secretly collaborated with Ukraine on the pathogen, and European prosecutors and U.S. officials suggested the sabotage was a Ukrainian operation. It is said that it was carried out by a member of staff. ” These ties to President Putin will make it even more difficult for NATO allies to feel comfortable sharing information with the United States.
BBC report Nikki Haley, who was the U.N. ambassador during the Trump administration’s first term and is also a politician competing for the Republican nomination in the 2024 election, recently suggested that Gabbard be given such a high-level intelligence role. “This is not a place for Russian, Iranian, Syrian or Chinese sympathizers to come,” Haley said. “He and other senators will have a lot of questions about Ms. Gabbard’s past statements and her meetings with Mr. Assad,” said James Lankford, another Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. said. They continued, “Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA employee and Democrat who worked with Gabbard in the House of Representatives, said in the media that President Trump’s DNI nominee has expressed views that favor his opponent. He told Puck.” Indeed, when I heard the nomination, I paused, Slotkin added. She is expected to vote on Gabbard’s confirmation as a Michigan state senator. ”
President Trump will sign an ethics agreement that will allow the FBI to truly vet all of his nominees, with a particular focus on people like Gabbard, who are critical to our nation’s long-term security. That is my hope. If our allies are dissatisfied with intelligence community leaders, they can easily suppress important information. Again, we know that Gabbard is not the only Trump candidate who is scaring our allies. They, like the people in our military, fear appointing Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. The world fears RFK Jr. and what he can do to the world’s health.
So Gabbard is just one of Trump’s more outrageous choices. The DNI’s twist on national intelligence in favor of Putin and Assad could have dire consequences for our country.
Peter Rosenstein She has been an active LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist for many years.
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