New in SpyWeek: Shock and Awe

FBI, CIA, DHS, Defense, Justice, staggered by Trump purges and loyalty tests

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TULSI TESTIFIES: We had been eagerly anticipating the confirmation hearing for Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick for director of National Intelligence. The hearing was everything we were promised, as the former progressive Democrat tried to defend and explain some of her past positions that put her at odds with the $100 billion intelligence community she wants to oversee.

The biggest flashpoint in the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing was the former Hawaii congresswoman’s past support for Edward Snowden, the former CIA and NSA contractor behind the largest public release of classified information in U.S. intelligence history. In 2020, Gabbard sponsored a resolution seeking to drop charges against Snowden, who she said “must be protected” as a “brave whistleblower.” 

Sticking to a script that left at least one senator exasperated, she repeatedly said Thursday that Snowden, who fled to Moscow and became a Russian citizen, “broke the law,” and she did not support the “extent” of information he released (which went well beyond NSA snooping on U.S. communications to its monitoring of foreign targets). Pressed by senators from both parties, Gabbard declined to brand Snowden a traitor, a view held by most in the U.S. intelligence community.

Moscow was paying attention. RT, the state-owned news and propaganda farm, quoted Gabbard’s opening statement describing the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a “disastrous decision.” (ABC News reported that while in Congress, she was a regular consumer of Russian state media.) Snowden, meanwhile, cracked that Gabbard should disavow her past support for whistleblowers. “Tell them I harmed national security and the sweet, soft feelings of staff. In D.C., that's what passes for the pledge of allegiance,” Snowden posted on X.

Gabbard also faced probing questions about her January 2017 meeting with now-deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.