Tag Archive for: director of national intelligence

Tulsi Gabbard’s Critics Ushered In An Era Of Civil Rights Abuses And Intel Failures

Tulsi Gabbard’s skeptics in the Senate have questioned her qualifications for Director of National Intelligence (DNI), but past DNIs who were confirmed with bipartisan support oversaw flagrant civil liberties abuses and major intelligence failures.

Many of the Democrats, and even some of the Republicans, who have expressed skepticism toward Gabbard supported her predecessors in the Biden and Obama administrations.

Gabbard’s harshest opponent, Virginia Democrat and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Mark Warner, implied in his opening statement that she may be legally unqualified for the position. The DNI is required to have “extensive national security expertise,” Warner said.

Gabbard is a Lieutenant Colonel in the National Guard, and she served in the Army National Guard for over twenty years where she was deployed to Iraq and Kuwait. Gabbard also served on the House Armed Services committee as a member of Congress from 2013 to 2021.

Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell has been notably silent on Gabbard’s nomination. He was also one of the Republicans who voted against confirming Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense.

During a floor speech in January, McConnell said he would support Trump’s national security picks “whose record and experience will make them immediate assets, not liabilities, in the pursuit of peace through strength.”

Maine Sen. Susan Collins previously expressed doubts about Gabbard’s position on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits warrantless spying on American citizens. Gabbard previously opposed Section 702, introducing the Protect Our Civil Liberties Act with Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in 2020. The legislation would have repealed the USA Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act.

But in January, Gabbard told Punchbowl News she would “uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702.” She also said there are now reforms in place that address her concerns. Then, in a move that surprised some, Collins announced Monday she’d support Gabbard’s confirmation.

James Lankford is pressing Tulsi on whether Snowden is a “traitor.” The problem with this is that I’ve never seen Lankford offer even a whisper of criticism of James Clapper, who was the DNI at the time of the Snowden leaks, and who lied under oath to Congress about the extent of…

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) January 30, 2025

Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford and Indiana Sen. Todd Young are among the other Republicans who had expressed skepticism toward Gabbard, including over her refusal to label Edward Snowden a “traitor,” although both have joined Collins in backing her.

Despite Gabbard going through the gauntlet, previous DNIs in the Biden and Obama administrations faced much less scrutiny.

🚨 “In Jan 21, Avril Haines, President-elect Biden’s pick to be the DNI, was the first of Biden’s cabinet nominees to be confirmed in a strongly bipartisan 84-10 vote. Trump and ⁦@TulsiGabbard⁩ deserve the same consideration from Senate Dems.” https://t.co/ezZCbfTL3C

— Alexa Henning (@alexahenning) January 18, 2025

Biden’s DNI, Avril Haines, was confirmed 84-10 with support from Republican skeptics of Gabbard like Sens. Collins, Young, Lankford, and McConnell, as well as Warner. Obama’s DNI, James Clapper, was confirmed with a unanimous voice vote. Neither Collins nor McConnell were identified as having any opposition to Clapper’s confirmation. Clapper’s nomination was also unanimously approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

One former national security official told the Caller that these DNIs oversaw “massive failures” during their tenure.

When Haines was DNI, the U.S. botched its withdrawal from Afghanistan, and was seemingly caught off guard by the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Before Haines, there was Clapper, who allegedly lied to Congress about overseeing a mass NSA surveillance program that spied on Americans. Clapper was also at his post when terrorists attacked and killed Americans at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

Despite this litany of past failures and abuses, Gabbard’s confirmation is on the line amid opposition from both parties.

“I think that the intelligence committee often now regards itself as representing the interests of the [IC] to Congress,” Alex Marthews, national chair of the civil liberties group Restore the Fourth, told the Caller.

Haines oversaw numerous intelligence debacles during the Biden administration.

In August 2021, Biden withdrew the U.S. from Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of 13 U.S. troops working to evacuate Afghan allies after Kabul was overtaken by the Taliban.

A former national security official previously told the Caller that American lives were lost because of a “failure to collect intelligence in Afghanistan.” Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies did not predict how rapidly the Taliban would gain power, according to an October 2021 Wall Street Journal report.

“There’s no question that as you pull out … our intelligence collection is diminished,” Haines said at the 2021 Intelligence & National Security Summit, after the withdrawal. “In Afghanistan, we will want to monitor any reconstitution of terrorist groups.”

Prior to serving as DNI, Haines served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where she worked under CIA director John Brennan — one of the officials who signed onto the letter doubting the authenticity of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.

In 2014, when Haines was deputy CIA director, The New York Times reported CIA staffers hacked a Senate Intelligence Committee computer network used to prepare a scathing report on the agency’s torture program.

An inspector general report revealed the CIA unlawfully gained access to the computers, forcing Brennan to issue an apology to members of the Senate Intelligence committee, including then-Chairwoman Democratic California Sen. Diane Feinstein.

Brennan created an “accountability board” to review the spying, which recommended against disciplining those CIA officials. Haines agreed with the conclusion and told the Daily Beast she found the Board’s assessment “persuasive,” generating backlash from progressives.

Left-wing activists opposed Haines’ nomination over the CIA torture report, among other reasons, yet Haines sailed through her confirmation process. Progressives have since offered little support to Gabbard, even as she has echoed many of their concerns over the surveillance state and endless wars.

Obama’s DNI James Clapper was caught up in multiple scandals throughout his time in charge of the intelligence community.

Clapper propagated the “Russian collusion” narrative against Trump and oversaw the mass surveillance of Americans.

Clapper claimed in 2013 that the NSA does not collect data on Americans. However, a report from Glenn Greenwald published that same year demonstrated Clapper’s claim was false — the NSA was, in fact, collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers in the U.S. In 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled the NSA’s mass surveillance of American’s phone records was illegal and potentially violated the Fourth Amendment.

Clapper apologized in a letter to Sen. Feinstein for his initial claim to Congress about the NSA’s surveillance programs, calling his response “clearly erroneous.”

Clapper also defended the FBI informant who spied on the Trump campaign for potential Russian interference, deeming it a “legitimate activity.” He allegedly lied about leaking the since-debunked Steele dossier to CNN, a House Intelligence Committee report revealed in June 2024.

Christopher Steele, a former British spy, alleged in the dossier that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 campaign. The dossier played an “essential role” in the FBI’s surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the Justice Department inspector general found in 2019.

Clapper was also among the 51 former officials to sign the Hunter Biden laptop letter.

Clapper was at the helm of the IC during one of the biggest scandals of the Obama administration — the terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed by terrorists tied to al-Qaeda-linked groups. A report released by the House Armed Services Committee found that Libya was unstable prior to September 2012 and there were multiple threats posed to U.S. and Western interests in the area.

While Haines and Clapper were confirmed with bipartisan support, key senators are still wary about confirming Gabbard, despite repeated intelligence failures and dwindling public trust in the IC from supposedly more experienced spooks.

Former North Carolina senator and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr lauded Gabbard’s qualifications and railed against efforts to stop her nomination during the hearing. A more establishment Republican, Burr’s endorsement could be crucial in swaying hesitant senators to support her.

Burr isn’t exactly MAGA — he voted to convict Trump in the Senate in 2021 after the president was impeached in the House over his alleged role in the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021. A former chair of the committee, his endorsement could sway hesitant Republican senators.

Gabbard was advanced by the Senate intelligence committee by a 9-8 vote Tuesday. Her floor vote is not yet scheduled.

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

Intelligence state reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: REPORT: Trump Suspending Security Clearances Of Intel Officials Who Signed Hunter Biden Laptop Letter

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Deep State Officials Opposing Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Have Close Ties To Defense Contractors, Censorship Tools

Numerous officials that signed a letter opposing Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for Director of National Intelligence (DNI) are tied to groups targeting “election misinformation,” left-wing organizations, intelligence agencies and defense contractors.

Certain members of Foreign Policy for America, the group behind the letter, are linked to entities from Lockheed Martin to George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Nearly 100 national security officials published a letter calling for a “thorough vetting” of Gabbard, and it was addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and soon-to-be Majority Leader John Thune.

Former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman criticized Gabbard’s views on the Russia-Ukraine war, former head of U.S. counterintelligence Joel Brenner blasted the nomination as “an insult to our intelligence agencies,” and former Senior CIA officer Melvin Gamble said her nomination “should worry any American who cares about keeping our country safe.”

But these very same people are part of the cohort of intelligence officials President-elect Donald Trump has signaled he wants to remove from power.

“This is a perfect example of why President Trump chose Tulsi Gabbard for this position,” Gabbard’s transition spokeswoman Alexa Henning told the Daily Caller.

“These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence,’ including the non-existent weapons of mass destruction. These intel officials continue to use classification as a partisan weapon to smear and imply things about their political enemy without putting the facts out.”

Much of the group’s criticism levied at Gabbard centered around her 2017 meeting with then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Much of that criticism has been absent for Democratic California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who also met with Assad in 2007.

Sherman, for her part, previously criticized Trump for attempting to remove U.S. troops from Syria in 2018.

Asaad fled the country and escaped to Russia after the oppositional coalition Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew his regime last week. HTS is considered a terrorist organization by many of the world’s governments, including the United States. The group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, was previously a leader of an al-Qaeda affiliate in the country.

Before she criticized Gabbard for speaking with a foreign dictator, Sherman negotiated with terrorists on behalf of the Obama administration. She was his Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and played a key role in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. The Obama administration unfroze nearly $2 billion in assets for the Iranian regime in 2016.

Rose Gottemoeller, Joel Brenner, and Brian P. McKeon all served in the Obama administration and slammed Gabbard’s nomination. President Obama launched a CIA program in 2013 aimed at removing Assad, but it was ultimately a failure, and Trump ended the program in 2017.

Gabbard called Assad a “brutal dictator” in an interview with CNN in 2019, and has defended the meeting as a means of preventing America from being involved in foreign entanglements.

“He’s a brutal dictator. Just like Saddam Hussein. Just like Gaddafi in Libya,” Gabbard told CNN.

Some of the officials opposing Gabbard’s nomination are affiliated with organizations focused on combating “disinformation” in elections. Sherman currently serves as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, John Tien, also signed the letter and is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center.

The Belfer Center was involved in the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency’s (CISA) training seminars on election “disinformation,” according to a CISA “Disinformation in 2020” YouTube video. The CISA relied on the Center’s “Defending Digital Democracy Project” (D3P), which is led by former Army intelligence officer Eric Rosenbach, and Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney’s former campaign managers.

The Belfer Center also partnered with The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and The International Republican Institute (IRI) to tackle “misinformation in elections,” both of which are funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), according to USA Spending.

USAID, which has been accused of being a CIA front, has multiple alumni who signed the letter, including Donald Sampler and Dr. Eric Rudenshiold. Additionally, the Executive Director of Foreign Policy for America, Andrew Albertson, worked in the USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI).

Multiple Foreign Policy for America members are also tied to Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, which recently held a discussion with never-Trump neoconservative Bill Kristol. In September 2024, it had an event on “free and fair elections” about “threats of foreign interference, disinformation, [and] political violence.”

Former Chief of Staff of the Commission Security and Cooperation in Europe, Alex T. Johnson, signed the letter and was senior policy advisor for Europe and Eurasia at George Soros’s Open Society Foundations until February 2019.

Aside from ties to left-wing organizations combating “disinformation,” some of the members are linked to defense contractors or groups funded by them.

The Woodrow Wilson Center received funding from Lockheed Martin in 2023. Ambassadors Anthony Stephen Harrington and Kenneth S. Yalowitz are both fellows and signed the letter opposing Gabbard’s nomination. John D. Butler, another official listed on the letter, was previously on the board of Lockheed Martin.

Rose Gottemoeller, who stated Gabbard has “serious red flags,” is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for National Peace’s nuclear program. Carnegie received funding from Boeing and Soros’s Open Society Foundations, according to its 2023 report.

Former Ambassador Kenneth S. Yalowitz and former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Annie Pforzheimer, who signed the letter, are both members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR is funded by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in addition to Blackrock, various banks, and tech giants like Google, according its list of corporate members.

Another official, former Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian P. McKeon, is Senior Director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Classified documents from then-Vice President Joe Biden were discovered at the Penn Biden Center office in 2022.

Last Monday, however, hundreds of veterans endorsed Gabbard’s nomination and lauded her military service.

“As a Member of Congress and as a civilian, Tulsi has been a stalwart advocate for veterans’ health concerning toxic exposures and cancer care as a result of our fellow veterans’ military service. Tulsi’s life exemplifies a rare blend of selflessness, courage, and leadership—qualities desperately needed to reform and strengthen our intelligence community,” their letter reads.

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

Intelligence state reporter.

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘National Security’ Officials Who Endorsed Harris Tied To Intel Agencies, Defense Contractors

GOP Senators Who Could Block Tulsi Gabbard’s Confirmation Took Huge Checks From Defense Industry

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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