{"id":39217,"date":"2025-02-03T10:08:44","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T18:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=39217"},"modified":"2025-02-03T10:08:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T18:08:46","slug":"tulsi-gabbard-refused-to-back-down-on-edward-snowden-it-could-tank-her-nomination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/02\/03\/tulsi-gabbard-refused-to-back-down-on-edward-snowden-it-could-tank-her-nomination\/","title":{"rendered":"TULSI GABBARD REFUSED TO BACK DOWN ON EDWARD SNOWDEN. IT COULD TANK HER NOMINATION."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Facing more than a dozen questions about her views on the NSA leaker, Gabbard held her ground at her DNI confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Matt Sledge<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

January 30 2025, 1:52 p.m. (TheIntercept.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tulsi<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump\u2019s nominee to be director of national intelligence, arrives to testify during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HOURS BEFORE TULSI<\/strong> Gabbard appeared for a combative hearing on her nomination as director of national intelligence on Thursday, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden gave some public advice to the woman who once pushed for his pardon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTulsi Gabbard will be required to disown all prior support for whistleblowers as a condition of confirmation today. I encourage her to do so. Tell them I harmed national security and the sweet, soft feelings of staff. In D.C., that\u2019s what passes for the pledge of allegiance,\u201d Snowden said on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even after facing more than a dozen questions about Snowden, however, Gabbard refused to back down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Gabbard told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Snowden broke the law and that she would no longer push for his pardon<\/a> \u2014 but that he had revealed blatant violations of the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact is he also, even as he broke the law, released information that exposed egregious illegal and unconstitutional programs happening within our government that led to serious reforms that Congress undertook,\u201d Gabbard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tulsi Gabbard Refused to Back Down on Edward Snowden. It Could Tank Her Nomination.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Sledge<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabbard has shifted many positions over the years, but her refusal to disavow Snowden may have endangered an already shaky confirmation. Senators from both parties expressed concerns on her stances on issues as varied as Snowden, NSA spying law, her criticisms of Ukraine and NATO after Russia\u2019s invasion, and her skepticism that former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad<\/a> oversaw gruesome chemical weapons attacks on his own people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Intelligence Committee members entered a closed session for further questioning, chair Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said he hoped to schedule a confirmation vote \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Thursday\u2019s questioning was any indication, the vote could hinge on Gabbard\u2019s position on Snowden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a Democratic U.S. representative, Gabbard in 2020 co-sponsored a resolution with then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., calling on the Justice Department to drop all charges against Snowden. In interviews, she called for a full-pledged pardon of a man she said had acted in the \u201cpublic interest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the kind of break with the intelligence community consensus in Washington, D.C., that endeared her to Trump, whom she endorsed during the election last year before announcing that she had switched to the Republican Party<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It did not, however, endear her to members of the Intelligence Committee who have cast Snowden as a Russian asset. At least seven members of the committee, which is stacked with surveillance hawks, asked Gabbard hostile questions about Snowden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cIs Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America? That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., asked Gabbard the same question three times, the last time his voice rising to a shout: \u201cWas Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabbard said that Snowden \u201cbroke the law\u201d \u2014 but declined to give a yes or no response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America? That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high,\u201d Bennet shot back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabbard told several senators that she was focused on the future and hoped to prevent future leaks with a four-point plan: making sure there are no more illegal intelligence-gathering programs, publicizing existing channels for intelligence agency whistleblowers, limiting access to classified information through security clearance reform, and giving would-be whistleblowers a \u201cdirect line to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabbard cannot afford to lose a single Republican in the committee for a positive referral and only three in the full Senate. Several suggested Thursday that they remained concerned about her position on Snowden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said intelligence agency staffers were upset about Gabbard\u2019s past support for Snowden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t see him as brave. They see him as a traitor,\u201d Lankford said. \u201cThey want to hear that you also believe the same \u2014 that not just that he broke the law, but that he\u2019s a traitor, because they don\u2019t want that to ever happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one point Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., even waived a printout of Snowden\u2019s post on X in the air, seemingly daring Gabbard to follow his advice. The substance of her answer to him did not change, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While many congressional Republicans have nothing but bad words to say about Snowden, Trump and some of his confidantes have been more supportive. Trump once called <\/a>the question of a pardon a \u201csplit decision.\u201d Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a> and Tucker Carlson<\/a> have both come out in support of clemency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DURING THE HEARING,<\/strong> Gabbard was asked repeatedly about her position on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the FBI to search through intelligence the NSA collects while ostensibly targeting foreigners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Privacy advocates say the law effectively creates a backdoor for the FBI <\/a>to scoop up information by and about Americans, many of whose communications are caught up in collection directed abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under questioning from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Gabbard said she supported adding a warrant requirement to the legislation that would force the FBI to receive court approval for such searches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, she struck a more equivocal tone in response to another question on the topic from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. She said she was not wedded to a warrant requirement if there were different ways of protecting Americans\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are many different ways to do this. The devil is in the details,\u201d Gabbard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elsewhere, Gabbard said she had been reassured by reforms to the law passed during its most recent reauthorization<\/a> last April. Civil liberties advocates have described those changes as superficial and warned that a new provision of the law could grant the government the power to compel ordinary Americans to collaborate in spying.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Gabbard was seeking to convince senators that she could work with the law, she failed to win over Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. He noted that Gabbard went on Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast after the reauthorization to state that it had made the law \u201cmany times worse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI appreciate this late conversion, but I\u2019m not sure I buy it, because you have had such an inconsistent position,\u201d Warner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it came specifically to civil liberties issues, the tone of the hearing dismayed one critic of government surveillance, Chip Gibbons of the group Defending Rights & Dissent. He said that members of the notoriously hawkish committee seemed to be acting as \u201cMcCarthyite enforcers as opposed to engaging in oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea that basic First Amendment and Fourth Amendment positions on TikTok, 702, whistleblower rights and First Amendment freedoms are disqualifying to be director of national intelligence is deeply disturbing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The back-and-forth over Section 702 left Gabbard as Trump\u2019s final major intelligence nominee to support further reforms. At nearly the same time that Gabbard was testifying, FBI director nominee Kash Patel backtracked on his scathing past criticism of the law<\/a> during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving a warrant requirement to go through that information in real time is just not comported with the requirement to protect American citizens,\u201d Patel said<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s almost impossible to make that function and serve the national, no-fail mission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Update: January 30, 2025, 5:58 p.m. ET<\/strong>
The article was updated to include additional comments from the confirmation hearing<\/em>.Share<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONTACT THE AUTHOR:<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Matt Sledge<\/a>sledge@theintercept.com<\/a>@sledge.41on Signal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facing more than a dozen questions about her views on the NSA leaker, Gabbard held her ground at her DNI confirmation hearing. Matt Sledge January 30 2025, 1:52 p.m. (TheIntercept.com) Tulsi Gabbard, Trump\u2019s nominee to be director of national intelligence, arrives to testify during her confirmation hearing before the Senate… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39218,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39217\/revisions\/39218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}