"The bottom line is this must end. President Trump’s reelection is a clear mandate from the American people to break this cycle of failure and the weaponization and politicization of the intelligence community,” Gabbard told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Gabbard promised to be objective and noted her military service, saying she would bring the same sense of duty and responsibility to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees and coordinates the work of 18 intelligence agencies.
The questions raised by senators about Gabbard's judgment and experience make her one of the more contentious of Trump's Cabinet nominees. Given thin Republican margins in the Senate, she will need almost all GOP senators to vote yes in order to win confirmation.
A former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, Gabbard is a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard who deployed twice to the Middle East and ran for president in 2020. She has no formal intelligence experience, however, and has never run a government agency or department.
It's Gabbard's comments, however, that have posed the biggest challenge to her confirmation. She has repeatedly echoed Russian propaganda used to justify the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine and in the past opposed a key U.S. surveillance program.
In a back-and-forth Thursday that at times grew heated, lawmakers from both parties raised concerns about her statements supportive of Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who fled to Russia after he was charged with revealing classified information about surveillance programs.
Several senators, including Republicans James Lankford of Oklahoma and Susan Collins of Maine, pressed Gabbard on whether she would push to pardon Snowden, or whether she considered him a traitor. On the last question, Gabbard repeatedly declined to answer.
“Yes or no, is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?” asked Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado.
“As someone who has served in uniform in combat, I understand how critical our national security is,” Gabbard responded, before Bennet cut her off, saying “Apparently, you don’t.”
Gabbard said that while Snowden revealed important facts about surveillance programs she believes are unconstitutional, he violated rules about protecting classified secrets. “Edward Snowden broke the law,” she said.
Gabbard has been accused of spreading Russian disinformation by Republican lawmakers and has even won praise in Russian state-controlled media. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, asked Gabbard on Thursday whether Russia would "get a pass" from her.
“Senator I’m offended by the question," Gabbard responded. “Because my sole focus, commitment and responsibility is about our own nation, our own security and the interests of the American people.”
A 2017 visit with Syrian President Bashar Assad is another point of contention. Assad was recently deposed as his country's leader following a brutal civil war in which he was accused of using chemical weapons. Following her visit, Gabbard faced criticism that she was legitimizing a dictator and then more questions when she said she was skeptical that Assad had used chemical weapons.
“I just do not understand show you can blame NATO for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, and when Assad used chemical weapons against his own people, you didn’t condemn him,” said the committee’s senior Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia.
Gabbard defended her meeting with Assad, saying she used the opportunity to press the Syrian leader on his human rights record.
“I asked him tough questions about his own regime’s actions,” Gabbard said.
Senators also pressed her about her changing views of the surveillance program known as Section 702, which allows authorities to collect the communications of suspected terrorists overseas.
As a lawmaker, Gabbard sponsored legislation that would have repealed it. She argued then that the program could be violating the rights of Americans whose communications are swept up inadvertently, but national security officials say the program has saved lives.
She now says she supports the program, noting new safeguards designed to protect Americans' privacy.
Gabbard defended her change of opinion, and said her critics are opposed to her nomination because she asks tough questions and doesn't always follow Washington dogma.
“The fact is what truly unsettles my political opponents is that I refuse to be their puppet,” she said.
Gabbard is among a couple of nominees who are facing more difficultly gaining unanimous support from Republican senators. Sens. Todd Young, Susan Collins and James Lankford were among the most aggressive questioners Thursday, but it remained unclear if they were satisfied enough by her responses to move her out of committee and confirm her on the Senate floor. The committee has not yet scheduled a vote.
There has been much discussion over whether the committee vote on Gabbard should be made in public or in private as the panel usually operates. Many of Trump’s supporters want it to be public to pressure any GOP senator who is considering opposing her nomination.
Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, supports Gabbard's nomination and said at the start of Thursday's hearing that he hopes she can rein in an office that he said has grown too large and bureaucratic.
Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, noted that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is now larger, in terms of staffing, than any of the agencies it was created to oversee.
“Look at where conventional thinking has got us. Maybe Washington could use a little more unconventional thinking,” Cotton said. “Ms. Gabbard, I submit that, if confirmed, the measure of your success will largely depend on whether you can return the ODNI to its original size, scope, and mission."
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Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer and Byron Tau contributed to this report.
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