Senate Puts Tulsi Gabbard in Charge of Our State Secrets
The World's Greatest Deliberative Body is not doing its job.
NBC News (“Senate votes to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as top U.S. intelligence official“):
The GOP-controlled Senate early Wednesday morning voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard to be President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, putting the former congresswoman in charge of the sprawling U.S. intelligence community.
The 52-48 vote was largely along party lines, with nearly all Republicans present voting in favor of Gabbard. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the former longtime GOP leader who has clashed with Trump, was the only Republican who joined all Democrats in voting against her.
Gabbard’s confirmation is a win for Trump and represents yet another example of his dominance over the GOP, where few have shown a willingness to step out of line.
After Trump announced Gabbard as his DNI pick in November, Democrats — and a handful of Republicans — voiced serious concerns about her 2017 secret meeting with then-President Bashar Assad of Syria; her sympathetic comments about Russia; her past efforts to repeal a powerful government surveillance tool, known as Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Section 702; and her previous support for Edward Snowden, a former government contractor who leaked classified information to the press about those spying programs.
Before her nomination, Gabbard had argued that Snowden should be pardoned. But appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee at a confirmation hearing last month, Gabbard reversed course, saying she would not push for Snowden to be pardoned or receive clemency, even as she refused to call the former National Security Agency contractor a “traitor” when pressed by GOP senators.
In addition, Gabbard backed off her sharp criticism of Section 702 during the hearing, calling it a “crucial” tool after Congress passed new protections last year.
In the end, McConnell was the sole Republican to buck Trump and vote no on Gabbard. In a scathing, lengthy statement after the vote, McConnell said it was apparent Gabbard was not prepared for the job and demonstrated a “history of alarming lapses in judgment.”
“The Senate’s power of advice and consent is not an option; it is an obligation, and one we cannot pretend to misunderstand. When a nominee’s record proves them unworthy of the highest public trust, and when their command of relevant policy falls short of the requirements of their office, the Senate should withhold its consent,” McConnell said, specifically sounding the alarm about Gabbard’s remarks about Snowden, Chinese aggression and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Alas, it was too little, too late. McConnell had multiple opportunities to put the national interest ahead of fealty to Trump during his tenure as Senate Leader and failed to do so.
Trump nominated many manifestly unqualified people to top positions in national security and law enforcement. There was hope that at least some of them would be rejected. So far, they’ve rubber stamped all of them, with only Kash Patel’s nomination for FBI Director yet to be confirmed. I have no doubt that he will be.
Dangerous to have a nutty Assad apologist in this serious intelligence role. Her access to the nation’s top secrets is a scary enough spectre. Worse than that: the near certainty that countries still run by serious adults will (and should) further limit intel sharing with a US security apparatus led by compromised, unqualified freaks like Trump, Musk, Hegseth, Patel, and Gabbard.
The consequences of this seem like they will be dire. Allies will not trust us with information–and if the hollowing out of the CIA goes forward as intended, we’d be relying more than ever on our allies assisting us.
What a heartbreaking mess.
Green lighting Patel and Junior will complete the death and burial of the Republican Party. Mitch’s sanctimonious post hoc moaning is all the more laughable given, as DrJJ noted, all the chances McConnell had to put a stake in the heart of Trump’s political career. “A democracy – if you can keep it.” McConnell wasn’t up to the task.
Meanwhile, the Russians and the Chinese will be eavesdropping via the VPs Apple watch.
While Trump just gutted the people who might be able to notice this and do something about it.
Now the CIA, DIA, NRO, NSA, etc. can stop wasting money in encryption. What’s the point anymore?
@Kathy:
‘Now the CIA, DIA, NRO, NSA, etc. can stop wasting money in encryption’
Another place DOGE can suggest for saving money!
Speaking of “unserious.”
Trump has been back in office for 3 weeks now. It is not a sure thing that there are still state secrets to be shared. I wish this was a stupid joke.
I’ll just add to the choir about how bad this consent is.
Overall, aside from Gaetz dropping out, it seems like the Trump admin 2.0 is going as bad or worse than people feared, and Republicans in Congress are completely complicit. We knew the House GOP was a clown show, but it’s now clear that the Senate is no better.
@reid: oh, they’ll stroke their chins and “be very concerned” as Trump and Musk dismantle what’s left of the federal government and undermine the rest of the US’s trade agreements and alliances through applied chaos.
@reid: @Grumpy realist: I think we’re witnessing the reality of a long-term issue and discovering what it looks like when “get reelected” is job # ONLY.
Well, maybe “support the party no matter what” is a separate job, or not.
@Charley in Cleveland:
I’m confident we wouldn’t have even gotten Mitch’s sanctimonious, scathing statement against Gabbard had there had been another couple Republican Senators willing to buck Trump to defeat her nomination. McConnell withholding consent was as cowardly and partisan as anything else this contemptible politician has done over the last decade.
Anyone else share my concern that the only thing holding back a bunch of nasty shit is that Patel and Jr. haven’t been confirmed yet? Honestly, I was expecting more anti-Trans and anti-vax stuff by now. I’m guessing the only reason for the delay in that and the implementation of whatever awful Comstock crap is coming is that they were waiting for their preferred bad actors to get in charge.
Like, this is all bad. Very very bad. But it hasn’t even scratched the surface of how bad it’s going to get. I am confident that average white people don’t understand this. I base this on learning this week that my SiL who votes Republican because of “taxes” (in the absolute most selfish sense) had no idea what Q-Anon is and had never heard of it. We are doomed.
@Beth:
Genuinely not knowing, or “Trump doesn’t know about Project 2025” not knowing?
QAnon has fallen in profile in the past few years, as so much of it has become mainstream Republican dogma at the same time as lunacy is being normalized. I can actually understand someone forgetting about it. And with the malleability of truth and strongly held beliefs, it’s pretty hard to know if someone actually believes Donald Trump is fighting a global kabal of pedophiles or if Joe Biden was executed at Guantanamo and replaced with a duplicate — or if they just like saying it, or if they just like saying it so much that they start to believe it despite knowing it isn’t true.
Words have no meaning, just meter, sound and imagery. I was going to say it’s like poetry, but it’s so much worse — It’s like when a musician uses temporary words when writing a song, never bothers replacing them, and then college freshmen attempt to analyze it.
This would be a fine time to listen to Pavement’s “Harness Your Hopes.”
Also, if any of the Discordian shitheads who came up with “Operation Mindfuck” are still alive, they should be beaten to death. But I think old age got to them first.
Patel committed actual perjury during his initial confirmation hearing:
Of course, this does not mean you are wrong. Senate Republicans, who have completely rolled over and ceded all their power to Trump, will rubber-stamp this guy just as they have the rest of Trump’s compromised and unqualified nominees.
The penalty for lack of candor under oath by an FBI employee is termination. There can be no mitigating circumstances. Yet they will soon have installed as Director a man who displayed complete lack of candor under oath. It’s disgusting.
I think RFK Jr. definitely gets confirmed but there is a chance Patel doesn’t (but I don’t know what odds I would lay).
@Gustopher:
Genuinely not knowing. She “dislikes” politics.
Su-Su-Sussudio!
@Beth:
Sure, but only because most average white people won’t be affected by this except to the extent that people they love are affected.
Or they care about what happens to people who aren’t average and white, but how many people are we talking there? A few percent? More? Certainly not most.
Literally Putin’s useful idiots confirmed as Directors. Wow!
Trump chose her.
My mind boggles at the implications. How the hell did she get confirmed given her past? Quisling comes to mind.
This one is dangerous.
Hegseth is distracted from damage in part, by running around renaming military institutions and canceling coed softball leagues.
@Gustopher:
It’s a bitter historical irony that the conspiracy mongering “distrust of institutions” promulgated in large part by left/libertarian types, and then becoming a dominant Hollywood trope (think of all the films/TV taking conspiracy as a given) ends up empowering the authoritarian right by metastasizing among the yawping gibbons of the populist right.
Unintended consequences, and all that.
Five Eyes has left the the building.
@Rob1:
Gabbard might actually be a willing Russian asset who assented. At this point, we can’t know.
Chances are great she is too stupid and narcissistic to realize she’s being used. She is the main character in her head, afterall.
Obvious Russian asset in control of US intelligence agencies. What could possibly go wrong? How could the Senate confirm after all her history?
Ffs, how did this happen? Both the nomination and confirmation? This is insanity. The world has gone bonkers – Republicans confirming a very stupid, vapid, very likely compromised nominee for CIA Director.
This is the shit we need to use against them next election.
Left-wing Q Anon.
@JohnSF:
I appreciate the irony. It also, speaking from the perspective of a Left-Libertarian type, probably helps substantiate belief in horseshoe theory and other forms of bothesiderism. Those sorts of views require dismissal of one of the central differences between left and right–disposition toward hierarchy.
If I was forced to limit myself to one criticism of mainstream American political thought, I would choose to argue that it lacks a credible, substantive theory of power.
@Steven L. Taylor: “I think RFK Jr. definitely gets confirmed but there is a chance Patel doesn’t (but I don’t know what odds I would lay).”
I’d rate the chances of either not being confirmed at 1% or less.
@Kurtz:
Well, to be fair, before the further reaches of the left embraced conspiraloonery in the 1960’s, it had largely been the preserve of the idiot Right (McArthy, “who lost China” and all that).
Though there was an earlier iteration of “horse-shoery” in the 192p0’s/30’s about “Merchants of Death” and the US involvement in the First World War.
I suspect the Republican right has a quite coherent “theory of power”.
They just don’t want to talk about the quiet bits out loud in public.
“We have the power, and we”ll do whatever it takes to hang on to it, and theoretical principles be damned.”
@Barry:
I guesstimate the GQP senators might not confirm him if they think he’ll go after them as well as “hurting the right people.”
I’d figured Jr. would get confirmed, because HHS looks like one department they’ll be happy to allow the nazi in chief to gut or destroy, so who cares who runs the ruins. But intelligence is a very important part of national defense, for every country, and that’s one GQP fetish that seems to trump even tax cuts for the oligarchs and oppression of minorities.
@Fortune:
Explanation requested.
@JohnSF:
Ha! Touché!
And this illustrates why my posts tend to be long. Often when I deliberately keep them short, I fail to insert important qualifiers. I this case, I did not convey that a theory must also be coherent.
If we accept your description of the GOP’s theory of power, it fails a coherence test when compared to many planks of its platform wrt government.
Per X today:
According to Wikipedia, Russian influencer Dugin ‘disapproves of liberalism and the West, particularly US hegemony. He asserts: “We are on the side of Stalin and the Soviet Union”‘.
@Kurtz:
Incoherence is inevitable when you are trying to be both populist and oligarchic at the same time.
And probably a positive boon.
One message on the stump and in the media; entirely another in private and in the less attended think tankery.
Planks are there to be used only insofar as the structure you desire to end up with actually requires.
In this case, the desired end state being de-regulation, tax cuts, and oligoplistic profit.
The rest is just frippery to keep the voter base reasonably content.
Their real problems are going to arise when the idiocies of their chosen popular salesman, Trump, regarding tariffs, interest rates, and so forth, collide at high speed with both the real economy and Wall St. (And possibly the bond markets)
@Ken_L:
Gabbard is likely too dumb, or narcissistic, to realize she is a Russian asset. She’s now in charge of our intelligence services for the next four years. Hegseth.
Useful idiots in the highest government offices on purpose and the Senate agreed. Ffs!
@JohnSF:
I think you have a decent idea of my views. Regardless you and I can go back and forth for days trying to list all the tensions within GOP philosophy, even excluding contrasts between action and message.
So, serious question: if you are a national intelligence agency, and you discover that the White House has been occupied by known hostile foreign intelligence assets, what do you do?
@Kurtz:
Lol why do y’all keep asking a puddle to be deep? Masochism?
If the first 20 times were the same, the 21st is not likely to be different.
@DrDaveT:
What do you do? Cope for four years. This, too, shall pass. Hope that the electorate tires of the nonsense. Hope that they choose better next time.
Hold out.
Protest if you want or will (I might, too.)
@DK:
I’m genuinely curious about this. And a couple other things Fortune has said.
In general, one of my interests is epistemology. The questions I have asked are largely in service to that.
@Kurtz: He doesn’t actually know who Tulsi Gabbard is?
ETA: Interesting. I wouldn’t have connected Fortune and epistemology. Keep us posted on what you discover.
@just nutha:
I mean, the words come from somewhere. I have a hunch that you have a specific place in mind.
ETA: not sure that Gabbard knows who Gabbard is. She’s like Lindy Li, but with official duties.
Realize that every dumb ass thing Trump does can be used against him.
Gabbard as DNI, Hegseth as DOD. Patel on the FBI tip. Grossly inappropriate nominees and directors of government agencies might be “no’s” going forward. The future will tell.
In 2028 we’ll have a new election. We will see.
Hegseth exited service as a major. He’s now DoD. Lately, he’s been a Fox News host who made his bones on how DoD was fucking up on gender issues.
Trump loves loud assholes who don’t know what the hell they are kvetching about.
Trump loves loud assholes who agree with him. Thinks that makes them qualified.
@Barry:
@Kathy:
I put both their confirmations at like 80%. RFK slightly lower.
It isn’t about qualifications, it’s about loyalty. About adherence to the vision to hollow out agencies from the inside. They’ve already confirmed uniquely unqualified and dangerous and quite likely double-agent in Gabbard, and an ignorant dumbass in Hegseth. Why would they quit now?
They have no shame.
Think it’s their time to shine.
@Fortune:
Is not a thing.
On the other hand your right-wing Q Anon is self identified and throughly documented.
@Steven L. Taylor:
There’s no chance that Republicns will reject a hardline anti-vaxxer like RFK Jr. The only question here is whether the physician, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) will vote to confirm. It’s a free ‘NO’ if he wants to.
Kash Patel? I can’t think of a reason why any Republican would reject his confirmation. Sure he’s telling them what they want to hear (aka ‘openly lying’) but Bondi, RFK Jr, and Hegseth did that too, and it cost them nothing.
All of this shows you that Matt Gaetz must have been universally hated in order for him to self-detonate his nomination.
People ask if RFK Jr’s appointment will have an effect on pharma. Don’t worry. It will require some navigation but Trump won’t let RFK get in the way of the profits of large business for long. He’s already killed the price caps proposed by Biden and I seriously question whether insulin pricing with be strongly negotiated. The PrRMA lobbying group has already signaled its acquiescence by not commenting on the cuts to NIH and NSF grants (see Derek Lowe’s In the Pipeline blog). Long-term, this is a problem for Pharma and biotech as they rely heavily on public research and on universities for producing skilled scientists. But that’s possibly seen as a shortish-duration bottleneck and most of the big companies are transnational, capable of working in multiple countries and recruiting non-US talent.