When President Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017, hundreds of thousands of people had been killed and millions more displaced by six years of grinding civil war. Assad waged this war with indiscriminate brutality, mass terror and repression, the extent of which is rapidly coming to light after his ouster in December.
A few months after Gabbard’s visit, the Assad regime massacred scores of civilians with chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun. U.S. intelligence agencies declared that the Assad regime was responsible, while Trump said: “There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons.”
Gabbard’s yearslong campaign of questioning Assad’s use of chemical weapons reveals a startling inability to evaluate intelligence.
Except there was dispute — from Trump’s future nominee for DNI, Tulsi Gabbard. On the day of the Khan Sheikhon attack, Gabbard somehow already knew she was “skeptical” that the Assad regime was responsible. This reflexive position didn’t change in subsequent years, even though it contradicted U.S. and French intelligence — as well as joint reporting from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations.
Follow MSNBC’s live blog coverage of Kash Patel’s and Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearings.
Gabbard instead relied on reports from MIT professor emeritus Theodore Postol that contained basic errors — such as mixing up chemical weapons attacks that took place four years apart. Postol has a long history of questioning the evidence for chemical weapons attacks launched by the Assad regime, and he is often cited as an authority by pro-Assad propaganda outlets like Russia Today.
For a potential DNI, Gabbard’s yearslong campaign of questioning Assad’s use of chemical weapons reveals a startling inability to evaluate intelligence. But what may be even more alarming is the clear political motivation behind Gabbard’s assessments — to cast doubt on evidence that would justify more forceful action against the Assad regime, which she obsessively lobbied against for years.
In 2019, Gabbard claimed that “Assad is not the enemy of the United States.” A few months later, she declined to label Assad a war criminal — despite the mountain of evidence for his war crimes that had accumulated over eight years of conflict, such as intentional bombings of civilians and repeated chemical attacks. When Russia launched a military intervention in Syria to prop up the Assad regime, Gabbard celebrated it as a victory against terrorism.
This was the standard propaganda line from Moscow and Damascus to justify what became one of the most destructive and indiscriminate bombing campaigns of the 21st century. Gabbard even said it was “mind-boggling that we protest” joint Russian-Syrian military operations and demanded to know: “Why is this a bad thing?” It was a bad thing because Assad was a murderous dictator and a client of one of the United States’ greatest geopolitical foes.
Gabbard touted the Russian intervention in Syria after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea — a harbinger of what was to come. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard once again felt sympathy with Moscow: “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.”
When Moscow accused Ukraine of hiding U.S.-funded biological weapons labs (a claim for which there is no evidence) to justify the invasion, Gabbard suddenly started talking about biolabs in the country that “need to be shut down immediately.” The existence of U.S.-supported biolabs (which are for public health research, not weapons production) in Ukraine is no secret, but Gabbard accused the Biden administration of “trying to cover this up.”
Gabbard touted the Russian intervention in Syria after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea — a harbinger of what was to come.
Gabbard lacks intelligence experience, which may be one of the reasons she has a history of hammering facts into distorted shapes that fit her political narratives. This is an extremely dangerous trait for someone who would oversee 18 intelligence agencies and be their primary liaison with the president. Gabbard has proved over and over again that she is incapable of objectively and reliably evaluating intelligence. How can she be trusted to provide Trump with information that isn’t manipulated by a political agenda? How can allies trust her to use the intelligence they share responsibly?
These problems are even more urgent with a president who is notoriously hostile toward American intelligence agencies. Trump has long complained of a “deep state” plot to undermine him, an accusation that often implicates the intelligence community. In July 2018, Trump sided with Putin over American intelligence officials on the issue of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Beyond Gabbard’s contempt for American intelligence agencies — a constant throughout her political career — it’s difficult to know what she actually stands for. A former Bernie Sanders-supporting Democrat turned Trump-friendly independent turned MAGA Republican, Gabbard was once extremely critical of Trump. She described his immigration policies as “despicable.” She said he “promised to drain the swamp, but he’s brought the swamp to the White House.” She said “Trump embodies capitalism without a conscience.” She denounced his “erratic, destructive tariff war with China.” She condemned his “efforts to intimidate those with dissenting views.” And she concluded that “Trump is not a patriot.” Now, Gabbard describes Trump as a “kind and courageous person who sincerely desires the best for the American people.” She once said he was threatening to start “WWIII in Syria to protect al-Qaeda,” but she now claims that Trump will “walk us back from the brink of nuclear war.” Most ominously, she echoes Trump’s paranoia about the intelligence agencies she has been selected to lead: “The real power lies with the Deep State, Intel agencies, and propaganda media. … They don’t want Donald Trump elected because they’re afraid he will expose and dismantle this shadow government pulling the strings.” While Gabbard repeats all the right MAGA talking points about the deep state (including the sinister “Intel agencies”), she’s willing to be a hawkish supporter of the intelligence community when it suits her. For example, she recently reversed course on a surveillance authority she once sought to eliminate: FISA Section 702, which enables the collection of foreign intelligence from non-U.S. persons abroad. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma cited this reversal as a justification for confirming Gabbard as DNI. How could Lankford or any other senator believe a word Gabbard says? Gabbard hasn’t just demonstrated naked political opportunism — she also has a long record of simply dismissing facts that contradict her political narrative. What’s particularly strange and disturbing is that this narrative always seems to be sympathetic toward the Putins and the Assads of the world. During her confirmation hearings, senators should ask why that is.
Matt Johnson
Matt Johnson writes for Haaretz, The Bulwark, The Daily Beast and many other outlets. He's the author of "How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment." 
