[Pages S866-S868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

NOMINATION OF TULSI GABBARD

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I thank Senator Blumenthal for his
unrelenting work to help protect our Nation and in raising this issue
around Tulsi Gabbard as a nominee to be the Director of National
Intelligence. I appreciate his work here, and I am proud to be able to
follow him in this effort.
I am here today because Tulsi Gabbard's nomination is a national
security threat. We are being confronted with a vote that could put all
of us at risk.
Look, everybody in the Senate understands the threat that Tulsi
Gabbard poses, but I want to make sure that everyone understands the
job she would have.
Why do we even have a Director of National Intelligence? The short
answer is to prevent another 9/11. The Director of National
Intelligence position was born in the aftermath of the terrorist attack
on New York that caused the Twin Towers to crash to the ground, that
collapsed part of the Pentagon, that led to the deaths of 40 brave
passengers on Flight 93. These terrorist attacks together killed almost
3,000 people, and they affected millions of family members, coworkers,
neighbors, and people in every State in our country and around the
world.
Soon after the attacks, we asked the most obvious questions: How did
this happen? Why didn't we see this coming? Why weren't we able to head
it off?
It rapidly became clear that our Nation had major intelligence
failures. We were gathering intelligence abroad and here at home, but
we were not effectively integrating and coordinating foreign, military,
and domestic intelligence, and the result of that failure was
catastrophic.
That is where the DNI Director comes in. The Director of National
Intelligence is the keystone that holds together our intelligence
community. This is the person who coordinates across Agencies to make
sure that each component of our intelligence system is talking with
every other, to make sure that what happened on 9/11 doesn't happen
again. This person is the principal adviser to the President on any
national security-related intelligence.
The Director of National Intelligence is central to how we make
decisions about where our military should be deployed, is central to
how we identify our greatest national security threats, and is central
to knowing what our enemy is going to do next--all of that.
Tulsi Gabbard is aggressively unqualified for this job, and making
her the Director of National Intelligence will increase the risk of a
national security crisis. For starters, she has no experience in the
intelligence community, and she has never served as a national security
official in the executive branch.
Tulsi Gabbard is also disqualified to be Director of National
Intelligence--not just unqualified but actually disqualified. Her
disqualifications mean she should be kept far, far away from any part
of our government intelligence system.
The problems with Tulsi Gabbard are many. She is an apologist for
Vladimir Putin, routinely spreading Russian misinformation and Russian
talking points about both Ukraine and Syria. She rejected our own U.S.
intelligence that Assad used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians,
and she went to Syria to meet with Assad and with a Syrian cleric who
had threatened to activate a network of suicide bombers within the
United States and Europe.
So let me say this as clearly as I can: Tulsi Gabbard would be the
No. 1 person in charge of all of our Nation's secrets--all of them: all
of our intelligence, every piece of secret information that we gather
from around the world and every secret that our allies around the world
might share with us. She would know all of it, and she would have
access to all of it, and she would be the one who would fit it all
together. Then she would be one of the people responsible for advising
the President on when and where to use our military.

I am deeply concerned about Tulsi Gabbard's track record and whether
she can be trusted with our secrets, but I am not the only one who is
worried. With the history that Tulsi Gabbard has, can we reasonably
expect other nations to trust us with the secret information they
gather?
Even if Gabbard behaved admirably as DNI, the United States would
likely have less access to sensitive information because our allies
just wouldn't want to take a chance on her, just wouldn't want to take
a chance that information they gathered and passed along--information
that could put their own operatives at risk, for example--would not
want to take the chance that they would pass that information along to
the United States, that Tulsi Gabbard would see it, and then who knows
where it goes.
I am concerned that other countries would say, because they don't
want to take a chance on her, that it would further undercut national
security if Tulsi Gabbard were confirmed as DNI.
What I am saying tonight is not breaking news. There is nothing here
that hasn't been said before. Concerns about Tulsi Gabbard have been
circulating on Capitol Hill for years. Every single Senator--Democrat,
Republican, or Independent--knows that they are putting our national
security at risk if they support Tulsi Gabbard's confirmation to head
our Nation's intelligence

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coordination. Every single Senator--Republican, Democrat, Independent--
knows the threat that Tulsi Gabbard poses. Every single Senator--
Republican, Democrat, or Independent--knows that Tulsi Gabbard could be
handing our secrets over to our staunchest adversaries.
The risks our Nation faces are rising by the hour. Tulsi Gabbard at
DNI. Pete Hegseth at DOD. And it isn't just confirmed Cabinet
appointees who are putting our Nation at risk; just look at what is
going on with Elon Musk and his team of DOGE minions at Treasury. In
order for this handful of programmers to gain access to our over $6
trillion payment system, we don't know what safeguards those hackers
pulled down. We don't know what gates they opened. And they have
apparently tried to get access to sensitive information at the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, and they have gained access to Medicare
and Medicaid records--which, by the way, is another $1.5 trillion in
payments every year. They seem to be rushing to access more large
datasets across the U.S. Government every day.
When Musk's team got into our Federal databases, were the gates
opened for hackers from China, from North Korea, from Iran, from
Russia? What criminal gangs and black hat hackers now have access to
our personal data?
I never thought we would get to this moment. My colleagues in the
Senate, despite our differences, have always taken national security
seriously, but at a moment when they are faced with a choice between
endangering our country or bending a knee to Donald Trump, too many
Republican Senators are too afraid of billionaires and Trump in their
own party to do what they know is right.
I want to take some time to underscore just how dangerous Tulsi
Gabbard will be to our national security. Let's start with Tulsi
Gabbard's ties to Russia. These connections are laid out nicely in the
New York Times article ``How Tulsi Gabbard Became a Favorite of
Russia's State Media.''

In 2017, when she was still a Democratic member of
Congress, Tulsi Gabbard traveled to Syria and met the
country's authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad. She also
accused the United States of supporting terrorists there.
The day after Vladimir [V.] Putin began a full-scale
invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ms. Gabbard blamed the United
States and NATO for provoking the war by ignoring Russia's
security concerns.
She has since suggested that the United States covertly
worked with Ukraine on dangerous biological pathogens and was
culpable for the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from
Russia to Germany in September 2022. European prosecutors and
U.S. officials say that sabotage was carried out by Ukrainian
operatives.
According to analysts and former officials, Ms. Gabbard
seems to simply share the Kremlin's geopolitical views,
especially when it comes to the exercise of American military
power.

Let me just say that again.

According to analysts and former officials, Ms. Gabbard
seems to simply share the Kremlin's geopolitical views,
especially when it comes to the exercise of American military
power.

Back to the story.

In Russia, the reaction to her potential appointment has
been gleeful, even if Mr. Putin's government remains wary of
American policies, even under a second Trump administration.
``The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. are trembling'' . . . Pravda, a Russian
newspaper, wrote on Friday in a glowing profile of Ms. Gabbard, noting,
positively, that Ukrainians consider her ``an agent of the Russian
state.'' Rossiya-1, a state television channel, called her a Russian
``comrade'' in Mr. Trump's emerging cabinet.
Russian media has emphasized Ms. Gabbard's desire to
improve relations with Moscow, according to FilterLabs, a
firm that analyzes social media, state-run news organizations
and other internet postings to track public sentiment in
Russia.
``Gabbard fits an overall pattern of Trump breaking with
much of the post-Cold War consensus,'' said Jonathan Teubner,
the chief executive of FilterLabs. ``She is, for Russia, the
one that perhaps most perfectly embodies the changes they
were hoping for from the U.S.''

In other words, Tulsi Gabbard is Russia's dream come true.

Mr. Trump's critics called the choice a dangerous one that
would undermine national security and that signaled a
deference to Mr. Putin's world view.
``Nominating Gabbard for director of national intelligence
is the way to Putin's heart, and it tells the world that
America under Trump will be the Kremlin's ally rather than an
adversary,'' Ruth Ghiat, a professor of history at New York
University and author of ``Strongmen,'' a 2020 book about
authoritarian leaders, wrote on Friday. ``And so we would
have a national security official who would potentially
compromise our national security.''

Let me say that again: ``And so we would have a national security
official who would potentially compromise our national security.''

``This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if
Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate
security concerns regarding Ukraine's becoming a member of
NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia's
border,'' Gabbard wrote on Twitter, now known as X, when the
war began in February 2022.
A month later, she posted a video on the platform saying
the United States was operating 25 to 30 biological research
labs in Ukraine. She accused the Biden administration of
covering them up and said they could release dangerous
pathogens, although she stopped short of claiming the labs
were making biological weapons, as Russia has falsely
claimed.
Ms. Gabbard's remarks were quickly called out by Republican
Members of Congress, including Representative Adam Kinzinger
of Illinois and Senator Mitt Romney of Utah.
Her willingness to criticize the Biden administration made
her, like other prominent critics of the government, a
favorite source of anti-American content on Russia's state
television networks.
Vladimir Solovyov, a popular talk show host, called her
``our girlfriend'' in a segment in 2022. The program included
an interview Ms. Gabbard did with Tucker Carlson, in which
she claimed that Mr. Biden's goal was to end Mr. Putin's
control of the Russian Government, according to Julia Davis,
the creator of the Russian Media Monitor, which tracks
Kremlin propaganda.
Her appearances were regularly picked up by Russia's state
media, including the international network RT, which promoted
her critiques and lauded her with headlines such as ``Tulsi
Gabbard dares to challenge Washington's war machine'' and
``Biden wants regime change in Russia--ex-congresswoman.''
By this year, Ms. Gabbard's politics converged with Mr.
Trump's. In October, she joined the Republican Party and hit
the campaign trail on his behalf, extolling him as a
peacemaker.
``A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for a man who wants to
end wars, not start them,'' she said at Mr. Trump's rally at
Madison Square Garden shortly before Election Day, ``and who
has demonstrated already that he has the courage and strength
to stand up and fight for peace.''

That is the end of the article.
Ah, Tulsi Gabbard--beloved by Russian press, touted in Russian press,
an attacker of American's military.
Or take key sections from this letter that William Webster--the only
person to lead both the FBI and the CIA--sent to me. He was appointed
by President Jimmy Carter, remained Director under President Ronald
Reagan, and Reagan tapped him to be the head of the CIA.
I will quote directly from the letter:

Dear Senator Warren,
I had the honor of serving as Director of both the FBI and
CIA, organizations vital to safeguarding our Nation. Their
effectiveness depends on operating with complete independence
from political influence--a principle essential to
maintaining public trust and national security.
History has shown us the dangers of compromising this
independence. When leaders of these organizations become too
closely aligned with political figures, public confidence
erodes and our nation's security is jeopardized. This
underscores the necessity for these institutions to serve the
American people, not the political agendas of the executive
or legislative branches.
Congresswoman Gabbard's profound lack of intelligence
experience and the daunting task of overseeing 18 disparate
intelligence agencies, further highlight the need for
seasoned leadership. Effective management of our intelligence
community requires unparalleled expertise to navigate the
complexities of global threats and to maintain the trust of
allied nations. Without that trust, our ability to safeguard
sensitive secrets and collaborate internationally is severely
diminished. As someone who transitioned from the FBI to the
CIA, I can attest to the steep learning curve even for a
seasoned professional. This is no time in world history for a
novice in the field to learn this role.
Every President deserves appointees they trust, but the
selection process must prioritize competence and independence
to uphold the rule of law. As you consider these and future
nominations, I urge you to weigh the critical importance of
nonpartisan leadership and experience. The safety of the
American people--and your own families--depends on it. Trust
in our intelligence and law enforcement agencies is also
crucial for our international partners. Without that trust,
we cannot be effective in guarding sensitive secrets or
collaborating to address shared threats.
Thank you for your careful consideration of these pivotal
appointments.
Sincerely,
William Webster,
Former director of the CIA and FBI.

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That is the end of his letter. I just want to say how grateful I am
both for William Webster's outstanding public service and commitment to
our Nation and for his willingness to stand up now and call out the
threats posed by Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to DNI.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists echoes these concerns in a
piece they published this week entitled ``Tulsi Gabbard as U.S.
intelligence chief would undermine efforts against the spread of
chemical and biological weapons.''

Gabbard's confirmation would undermine one of the signature
foreign policy accomplishments of President Donald Trump's
first term: countering the threat posed by chemical weapons.
Following a sarin attack on the Syrian city of Khan Sheikhoun
on April 4, 2017, the Trump Administration launched a cruise
missile strike against an airbase that U.S. intelligence
determined Assad's forces had used to launch the chemical
assault. After intelligence agencies determined that Syrian
helicopters had conducted a chlorine gas attack on Douma on
April 7, 2018, Trump authorized another missile strike, this
time along with the United Kingdom and France, against Syrian
chemical weapons facilities. Both strikes were effective at
deterring further Syrian use of chemical weapons. After April
2017 the Syrian air force did not use sarin and after April
2018 Syrian helicopters stopped dropping chlorine barrel
bombs.
Gabbard, however, has repeatedly claimed, including at her
confirmation hearing, that the chemical attacks against Khan
Sheikhoun and Douma were staged by anti-Assad groups to
provoke a Western military intervention. In 2019, Gabbard,
then a Democratic presidential candidate, accused Trump of
launching the strikes based on flawed intelligence: ``Rather
than waiting for evidence, Trump acted on impulse and
emotion, relying on social media posts and unverified sources
originating from within territory held by al Qaeda. In March
2021, Gabbard repeated her unfounded allegation that there is
no evidence supporting the Syrian government's responsibility
for conducting the ``alleged'' chemical attack on Douma. She
accused the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons, (OPCW), which administers the global treaty banning
chemical weapons and investigated the attack, of a cover-up
and claimed that Trump's missile strikes on Syria were
``unconstitutional.''
Gabbard's claims about false-flag attacks, however, ignores
intelligence put forward by the Trump Administration and
France, an investigation by the United Nations Joint
Investigative Mechanism, and multiple investigations by the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. These
national and international investigations based their
conclusions on a compelling combination of signals
intelligence, eyewitness testimony, photographs, videos,
chemical forensic analyses, medical records, analyses of
munitions fragments, satellite imagery, and information
provided by third parties. For Gabbard to accuse opposition
groups, [who were] the victims of Syria's chemical
atrocities, of attacking themselves with chlorine and sarin
is a grotesque perversion of the truth.

And yet she continues it.

Instead of relying on reputable sources, Gabbard has
repeated Russian and Syrian disinformation and discredited
conspiracy theories to call into question the quality of US
intelligence, Trump's judgment, and the credibility of the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. In
March 2021, Gabbard signed a ``statement of concern'' about
the organization's investigation of the Douma attack that
echoed Russian propaganda and was promoted by a group linked
to Wikileaks. Gabbard has made her claims about the Syrian
chemical attacks despite warnings from the US intelligence
community that these types of allegations are a common
feature of the Kremlin's disinformation campaigns. Her
reliance on these dubious sources demonstrates a dangerously
poor lack of judgment for someone seeking the highest-ranking
position in the intelligence community.
Gabbard's deeply flawed position on Syria's use of chemical
weapons is still highly relevant today. With the fall of the
Assad regime last December, the issue of how to secure and
destroy Syria's remaining chemical weapons is back on the
international agenda. How can Gabbard be trusted to oversee
intelligence on this topic if she refuses to believe that
Syria used chemical weapons after it joined the Chemical
Weapons Convention, CWC, that treaty banning chemical
weapons, in 2013? Will she provide Trump with intelligence
that undermines her own strongly held position on this issue
or will she twist intelligence to fit her [own] worldview?
And there is more at stake than just the threat posed by
Syria's remaining chemical weapons. Between 2017 and 2020,
the Trump Administration found Russia in violation of both
the chemical weapons treaty and the Biological Weapons
Convention, which bans biological weapons. Trump imposed two
rounds of sanctions on Russia for using the Novichok nerve
agent to poison a Russian defector. In August 2020, Trump
blacklisted three Russian institutes responsible for
developing chemical and biological weapons. Since then,
the United States has accused Russia of using the chemical
weapon chloropicrin, and the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has confirmed Russia's use
of riot control agents on the battlefield in Ukraine, both
of which are violations of the chemical weapons treaty.
There are also disturbing signs that Russia is modernizing
its biological weapons program by building a new maximum
containment laboratory in a military facility.
To divert attention from its own chemical and biological
weapons, Russia has made a series of unfounded and debunked
allegations that the United States and Ukraine are developing
and using these weapons. Gabbard came perilously close to
endorsing these claims in 2022 and she did embrace other
elements of Russian (and Chinese) disinformation about the
allegedly nefarious and dangerous activities of US-supported
public health labs in Ukraine, including labs built during
Donald Trump's first term. How can Gabbard be trusted to
advise the president on issues related to the verification of
Russia's compliance with chemical and biological arms
control?
Based on this track record, it is difficult to see how
Gabbard can be relied upon to provide the quality of
intelligence and national security advice needed by the
commander in chief during these perilous times. For the
Senate to confirm Gabbard would be national security
malpractice.

And that is the end of the piece.
I am looking to see who else is going to be here.
Just finish up? OK. Just wanted to make sure, because I know what is
happening here.
In a relay race, it is always important to know if you have to hand
off the baton.
Look, I will conclude with this: National security officials and
experts in intelligence are begging the Senate to exercise their
constitutional duty and vote no on Tulsi Gabbard for Director of
National Intelligence. We are being asked to vote for someone whose
loyalty to this country has been questioned repeatedly and has raised
alarms for our allies across the globe. It would be a dangerous mistake
to give Tulsi Gabbard access to all of our secrets, and an even greater
mistake to trust Tulsi Gabbard to protect this country.
I urge all of my colleagues to vote no.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.

____________________