(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump is selecting former US Representative and one-time Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard to be his director of national intelligence, elevating a loyalist and skeptic of support for Ukraine to coordinate the nation’s spy agencies.
“As a former Candidate for the Democrat presidential nomination, she has broad support in both parties — she is now a proud Republican!” Trump said in a statement. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community.”
Gabbard, who represented Hawaii in the US House as a Democrat from 2013 to 2021, is a veteran of the Iraq War and continues to serve as an officer in the Army Reserve. She ran to be the Democratic party’s presidential nominee in the 2020 election before dropping out of the race and endorsing President Joe Biden.
But Gabbard clashed with fellow Democrats and announced in 2022 that she was leaving the party. As a frequent guest on Fox News, she often criticized members of her own party, and later served as a fill-in host for Tucker Carlson’s show before he left the network.
This cycle, she embraced Trump, appearing with him at events and serving as an honorary co-chair of his transition team, alongside another former Democrat, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Gabbard in October announced she is joining the Republican party.
She has advocated for fewer deployments of US troops abroad, and criticized Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s general election rival, for seeking the support of Republican “warmongers” such as former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
Gabbard met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria in January 2017 and later expressed skepticism that Assad used chemical weapons on his own citizens, contrary to US intelligence assessments. She criticized Trump for carrying out missile strikes on Syrian territory in April 2017, calling it “short-sighted.”
Like Trump and his vice president-elect, JD Vance, Gabbard has expressed skepticism for the defense of Ukraine. She wrote a post on X in February 2022 that the war “could have been easily avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border.”
Gabbard came under for fire in 2022 for promoting Russian propaganda when she said that the US has funded more than 25 bio labs in Ukraine to conduct research into deadly pathogens. In a post on social media platform X, she said the US, NATO and Russia and Ukraine “must implement a ceasefire now around these labs until they’re secured.”
America’s 17 intelligence agencies report to the ODNI, including higher-profile power centers such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The role could put Gabbard in an uncomfortable position with Trump. The president-elect has had a hostile relationship with the intelligence community, famously siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his own agencies’ assessment of Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election and accusing the “deep state” of being “weaponized” against him, his allies and supporters.
Trump has also been criticized over his handling of America’s closest-guarded secrets, including sharing sensitive intelligence from Israel with Russian officials early in his White House tenure. He was later indicted for allegedly keeping highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort after his first term ended.
The ODNI position became politicized over the course of his first term. John Ratcliffe, who had no significant intelligence background when he replaced Dan Coats, was criticized for releasing classified Russian disinformation related to Hilary Clinton and the 2016 campaign.
Trump has said he will nominate Ratcliffe as head of the CIA.
--With assistance from Natalia Drozdiak.
(Updates with details on Gabbard’s record in 9th paragraph.)
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