President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to lead the intelligence community was met with mixed reactions, but a faction of activists and lawmakers who have worked to rein in government spy powers were pleased by the choice.
Gabbard, a veteran and former congresswoman from Hawaii, has faced accusations from some that her stances on U.S. adversaries could threaten national security, but others see Gabbard as an ally in their fight for privacy protections.
As the director of national intelligence, Gabbard would oversee 18 intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, if she is confirmed by the Senate.
Trump had been expected to reward Gabbard with a top role in his administration after she left the Democratic Party in 2022 and became one of his top campaign surrogates this year.
He chose Gabbard for DNI in part because she has a long history of raising concerns about the intelligence community’s ability to access U.S. citizens’ private information, such as their personal communications.
“Just as the Democrats and the Washington elite see President Trump as a threat to their unchecked power, they see congresswoman Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard as a threat as well,” a Trump transition spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “As DNI Director, she will champion our constitutional rights and put an end to using intelligence agencies as weapons against the American people.”
During her time in the House, Gabbard voted three times in favor of adding warrant requirements into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA, a sore subject for Trump, is a law through which the government can access a vast trove of foreign communications that sometimes have included U.S. citizens’ data. The FBI, in particular, was found to have abused its access to the data by improperly querying it hundreds of thousands of times, though the bureau has said recent reforms have significantly reduced these lapses.
Gabbard’s votes also included enhancing the security of encrypted communications, which is at odds with the FBI’s position that encrypted services, like ProtonMail, have become an increasingly difficult obstacle when trying to investigate people.
Gabbard and a bipartisan group of two dozen other House lawmakers were founding members of the Fourth Amendment Caucus in 2016. Gabbard said at the time that she joined the caucus because “privacy and civil liberties have not kept up with the rapid expansion of technology in today’s digital age.”
Gabbard has expressed support for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and said she believes Edward Snowden should receive a pardon. Snowden, a former government contractor, leaked classified information that revealed National Security Agency surveillance programs.
Some lawmakers, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), have aggressively pushed for placing restrictions on the intelligence community’s access to the FISA database. In a stunning bipartisan House vote, they nearly succeeded in passing a warrant amendment in the House this year. The measure failed by a one-vote margin, causing a huge sigh of relief among the intelligence agencies watching.
Lee told the Washington Examiner he was eager to see the Senate confirm Gabbard.
“As a Member of Congress, she gained a keen understanding of the need for intelligence agencies that are accountable to the American people and act in their interests alone,” Lee said. “I look forward to working with her to reform America’s spying programs and ensure that these important powers are never again abused for political gain.”
Davidson told the Washington Examiner he felt Gabbard has been “wrongly maligned” after critics, such as former CIA agent Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, excoriated Gabbard for her sympathetic posture toward Russia and Iran, which they said presented national security risks.
Davidson emphasized that the House’s FISA vote included a two-year expiration date, meaning Gabbard would be one of the key officials involved in the next reauthorization fight.
“One of the [wins] we got in the FISA reform effort this last Congress was a short-term expiration, and I can think of few people that I would be happier about being in that position, that are qualified to do it, than Tulsi Gabbard, because I think she’ll put America first on national security, but she will also do it in a way that respects our Constitution,” Davidson said.
James Czerniawski, senior policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about Gabbard’s nomination.
“She’s historically been good on the surveillance issues during her time in Congress, and I hope she can bring that reform-oriented mindset to that role as the DNI to hold the surveillance state accountable looking forward,” Czerniawski said. “I think she represents a move away from the status quo, and that’s a welcome sight.”
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Gabbard will still face a difficult confirmation fight in the Senate. Democrats, such as Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who have been known to form unusual alliances with Republicans in the name of privacy, have said they will not support her nomination.
Blumenthal told the Washington Examiner that while he and Gabbard “may agree on some of the privacy issues,” he felt she could not survive an FBI background check.
“Before we get to the privacy issues, consider the potential threat to our national security from someone who, in effect, is advocating for Vladimir Putin,” Blumenthal said.
