FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Republican senators pushed back on Sunday against Democrats’ criticism of it Tulsi GabbardDonald Trump’s choice to lead American intelligence servicesis “compromised” by her comments supported Russia And secret meetingsas a congressman, with the Syrian president, a close ally of the Kremlin and Iran.
Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat and veteran of combat missions in Iraq, said she was concerned about Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s choice to director of national intelligence.
“I think she has compromised,” Duckworth said on CNN’s State of the Union, citing Gabbard’s 2017 trip to Syria, where she held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad. At the time, Gabbard was a Democratic House member from Hawaii.
“The U.S. intelligence community has determined that it has a problematic relationship with America’s enemies. And so I’m afraid she won’t be able to pass a background check,” Duckworth said.
Gabbard, who said last month she is joining the Republican Party, served in the National Guard for more than two decades. She was deployed to Iraq and Kuwait and according to the Hawaii National Guard received a Combat Medical Badge in 2005 for “participation in combat operations under enemy fire in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III.”
Duckworth’s comments sparked immediate backlash from Republicans.
“It is wrong for her to say such ridiculous and downright dangerous words,” Senator Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, said on CNN, challenging Duckworth to retract her words. “That’s the most dangerous thing she can say – is that a US lieutenant colonel in the US military has been compromised and is an asset to Russia.”
In recent days, other Democrats have accused Gabbard, without evidence, of being a “Russian asset.” Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, has claimed, without providing details, that Gabbard is in Russian President Vladimir’s “Putin’s pocket.”
Mullin and others say Democrats’ criticism is rooted in Gabbard leaving their party and becoming an ally of Trump. Democrats say they worry that Gabbard’s appointment as head of national intelligence will jeopardize ties with allies and hand Russia a victory.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat just elected to the Senate, said he would not describe Gabbard as a Russian asset but said she had “highly questionable judgment.”
“The problem is that if our foreign allies don’t trust the head of our intelligence community, they will stop sharing information with us,” Schiff said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Gabbard endorsed one of Russia’s justifications for Invade Ukraine: the existence of dozens of US-funded biolabs working on some of the world’s most nasty pathogens. The labs are part of an international effort to control outbreaks and stop bioweapons, but Moscow claimed Ukraine was using them to make deadly bioweapons. Gabbard said she was simply raising concerns about protecting the labs.
Gabbard has also suggested that Russia had legitimate security concerns when it decided to invade Ukraine, given its desire to join NATO.
Republican Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri said he found it “completely ridiculous” that Gabbard was being portrayed as a Russian asset because he had different political views.
‘It’s insulting. It’s a blemish, honestly. There is no evidence that she is an asset to any other country,” he told NBC.
Sen. James Lankford, another Oklahoma Republican, acknowledged he had “a lot of questions” for Gabbard as the Senate considers her nomination to head the intelligence community. Lankford said on NBC that he wants to ask Gabbard about her meeting with Assad and some of her past comments about Russia.
“We want to know what the goal was and what the direction was for it. As a member of Congress, we want the opportunity to talk about past comments she has made and put them in full context,” Lankford said.