“Put aside the nebulous insinuations that surround the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence,” the veteran national security reporter and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote Wednesday night. “There are three solid reasons to oppose her confirmation: her lack of competence in the skills the job requires; the wobbly credibility of her past statements; and her poor judgment about key issues facing the intelligence community.” After cataloguing her numerous shortcomings, he simply concluded, “She is utterly unqualified to oversee America’s network of intelligence agencies. Even by Trump’s standards, this is a crazy choice.”
We couldn't agree more—and have used our own modest space here to make the case(s). And since we’ve gained a lot of new readers in recent weeks, some of you may not have seen our own contributions to the case that Gabbard poses an unprecedented liability to U.S. national security at a time of gut-checking challenges to us from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, not to mention President Trump’s own oft-repeated vow to dismantle the so-called “deep state,” by which he really means replacing career professionals with lackeys who will tell him only what he wants to hear. He’s already appointed a CIA director, John Ratcliffe, who did a obscene political favor for Trump during his brief stint as DNI in his first term.
The prospect of Gabbard, who’s been nominated for DNI only because of her belated fervor for Trump—and surely in part, because the Hindu cult follower takes Russia’s side on Ukraine—taking her place alongside Ratcliffe at the apex of U.S. intelligence is mind boggling. Add in the prospect of extreme serial fabulist Kash Patel running the FBI, and we really face a prospective security nightmare—or just bureaucratic chaos—when we need firm hands and stability at the top. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz’s mass expulsion of nonpolitical NSC staffers from the Eisenhower Executive Building and White House Situation Room, not to mention the confirmation of recovering alcoholic and Fox TV personality Peter Hegspeth as defense secretary, also had our gums tightening.
That said—and we’ve said it here before—there’s no doubt the intelligence agencies need fresh new leadership and serious reform (and more resources). The current challenges from abroad, and within, demand it. These Trumpettes are just the worst three we can imagine to carry that out. We’ll be praying they surprise us—in a good way.
In any event, here’s what we’ve done on them over the last couple months. There will be more to come as the confirmation hearings begin.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to SpyTalk to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.