Diplomats and former intelligence officials call for Senate hearings to confirm Gabbard to occur behind closed doors
A spokeswoman for the former congresswoman called the attacks unfounded and partisan.
Tulsi Gabbard in a file photo
Dozens of diplomats and former U.S. intelligence and national security officials have called on Senate leaders to schedule closed-door confirmation hearings for former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for national intelligence director.
According to officials, the private hearings would allow for a full review of government files on Gabbard, who confirmed this year that the U.S. had for a time included her "on a secret terror watch list" as a "potential domestic terror threat."
The former congresswoman called the government's action political retaliation.
In the petition, the former officials said they were "alarmed" by Gabbard's selection to oversee the nation's 18 intelligence agencies. They specified that the former representative's past actions "call into question her ability to deliver unbiased intelligence briefings to the President, Congress, and to the entire national security apparatus."
Alexa Henning, a spokeswoman for Gabbard who works on Trump's transition team, described the attacks as baseless and partisan. A good portion of the officials worked for Democratic administrations.
"These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence,’" the spokeswoman said.
Notable among the petition's signatories are former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who served for the Biden administration; former NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller, who has worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations; former national security advisor Anthony Lake, who served for the Clinton administration; and numerous retired ambassadors and senior military officers.
In particular, the signatories questioned Gabbard for holding meetings in Syria with President Bashar al-Assad in 2017 and asked that Senate committees "consider in closed sessions all information available to the U.S. government when considering Ms. Gabbard’s qualifications to manage our country’s intelligence agencies, and more importantly, the protection of our intelligence sources and methods."
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