Trump top spy pick faces fresh scrutiny over Syria visit and Russia comments
Getty ImagesFormer congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's controversial 2017 meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and past statements on Russia's invasion of Ukraine have drawn fresh scrutiny after President-elect Donald Trump picked her to oversee America's spy agencies.
On Thursday, she will face questioning from senators in Washington who will later vote on her confirmation.
If confirmed as US director of national intelligence (DNI), Gabbard would act as a steward of the nation's most important secrets, oversee 18 US spy agencies and serve as a close adviser to the president.
But former US national security officials and lawmakers have raised concerns that the choice of Gabbard - a fierce opponent of America's involvement in foreign wars and whom critics accuse of echoing Kremlin narratives - could negatively affect intelligence co-operation.
Lewis Lukens, a retired diplomat who served as the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in London during the first Trump istration, told the BBC that Gabbard's "dubious judgement" could give allies "reason to question how safe it is to share intelligence with the US".
Gabbard, who recently ed the Republican Party, has previously said her detractors are "warmongers" who seek to smear any critic of Washington's establishment.
Trump has also defended his pick, saying that Gabbard - a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve who deployed to Iraq and Kuwait - “will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our intelligence community”.
But in an odd twist for a DNI appointment, Russian state media praised the Gabbard choice, which only added to the alarm among national security officials in the US capital.
Prominent talk show host Olga Skabeyeva said on 14 November that "virtually from the first days of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, she [Gabbard] explained its reasons, criticised the actions of the Biden istration, and also personally met none other than Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ed his fight against terrorists."
For as long as she has been in politics, Gabbard's positions have earned her praise and scorn from Democrats and Republicans alike.
Her views have been generally anti-war, opposed to American intervention and deeply critical of the US intelligence community.
But it was her January 2017 "fact-finding" trip to Syria as a congresswoman that first sparked outrage - particularly when she later raised doubt about the US intelligence assessment that Assad's forces had used chemical weapons on civilians.
After the Trump istration launched a series of strikes on Syria in April that year following a chemical attack that killed more than 80 people, Gabbard called the strikes "reckless and short-sighted", saying they would escalate the civil war and hamper the collection of evidence about what had happened.
The US launched missiles at a Syrian Air Force base where the Pentagon said a warplane had taken off before dropping bombs filled with the nerve agent sarin on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.
A UN later came to the same conclusion as the US, saying it was confident that the Syrian government was responsible for the release of sarin in the town.
Assad's government and its ally Russia rejected the report and alleged that the Syrian Air Force strike hit a rebel depot full of chemical munitions.
Gabbard's comments, and her controversial meeting with Assad, hung over her run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019.
Defending her actions, she told an interviewer that Assad, who is also backed by Iran, was "not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States".
The Trump transition team has not responded to a request for comment from the BBC.
She drew further attention during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when she made statements seen by some as echoing Putin's justifications for the war.
Gabbard said that the war could have been avoided if the Biden istration and the Nato military alliance "had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns" about Ukraine eventually becoming a member.
Weeks later, she released a video commenting that US-funded biolabs in Ukraine could be breached and "release and spread deadly pathogens". It came as Russia, defending its invasion, spread unevidenced claims that the US was helping Ukraine to develop biological weapons.
In response, Republican Senator Mitt Romney posted on social media that Gabbard was "parroting false Russian propaganda" and spreading "treasonous lies". Gabbard sent a cease-and-desist letter to Romney over his remarks.
And during the 2024 presidential campaign, Gabbard alleged that Vice-President Kamala Harris was the "main instigator" of the conflict in Ukraine for having ed Kyiv's Nato aspirations.
Nikki Haley, Trump's UN ambassador during his first term and a politician who challenged him for the Republican nomination in the 2024 election, said recently that Gabbard could not be entrusted with such a high-level intelligence role.
“This is not a place for a Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathiser,” Haley said.
Questions for foreign allies
Some worry that Gabbard taking the position could affect trust between US intelligence agencies and their foreign counterparts.
A former senior White House official said Gabbard's appointment could have "real effects on our ability to have intelligence diplomacy with close allies".
"It certainly will raise real questions in the minds of foreign counterparts if the person sitting across from them - Tulsi Gabbard - has fundamentally differing assumptions about Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin," the official told the BBC.
A former Nato official in London echoed that concern, saying that Gabbard's nomination would raise serious questions about how the UK and other American allies approach the US intelligence community under Trump.
Getty Images"I think there's an extreme level of discomfort because why would you appoint somebody who has got no background and wacky views to such a responsible position":[]}