Washington Post: Trump chooses Tulsi Gabbard for national intelligence director position
US President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Tulsi Gabbard, a defector from the Democratic Party known for her pro-Russian positions, to head the US National Intelligence Directorate, as part of his government’s appointments before he officially takes office on January 20.
Trump’s nomination of the former Democratic congresswoman to the position of director of national intelligence raised questions about her visit to Syria in January 2017 and her meeting with Syrian President Bashar al Assad as part of a fact-finding mission while she was a member of Congress.
Gabbard wrote in a blog post at the time that she went to the country “to see and hear firsthand from the Syrian people affected by the devastating war there”.
She revealed that she met with Syrian President Bashar al Assad, who is supported by Iran and Russia and is accused of killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and destroying large areas of the country.
Gabbard said in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper after the trip that she went to Syria because the suffering of the Syrian people weighed heavily on my heart.
She added, “the meeting with Assad wasn’t planned, however when the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so, because we have to be able to meet with whoever we need to if there is a possibility of peace, and that’s exactly what we talked about”.
The Honolulu Civil Beat reported that Gabbard met with Assad twice while in Syria, first for an hour and a half shortly after arriving in Damascus, and again for 30 minutes two days later.
It’s common for members of Congress to travel abroad or meet with foreign leaders, but it’s rare for them to do so with leaders accused of atrocities against their own people or seen as unfriendly toward the United States.
The United States is the largest single donor of humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, according to the State Department.
Gabbard likened her meeting with Assad to Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The trip to Syria and meetings with Assad overshadowed Gabbard in 2019 as she sought the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, and they came up again after Trump announced her nomination.
“What do you say to Democratic voters who saw you go there, and what do you say to American troops who have been deployed repeatedly to Syria to push back Assad?” Gabbard was asked by Kassie Hunt on MSNBC on February 19.
Gabbard responded that the United States deployed those troops without a clear understanding of the mission or the objective”.
Asked if Assad was an enemy, she said, “he wasn’t an enemy of the United States, because Syria doesn’t pose a direct threat to the United States”.
Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party and later declared herself a Republican, became a close adviser to Trump during his 2024 election campaign.
But aside from her previous political affiliations, she has also disagreed with him on a number of issues, including Syria.
She has repeatedly called Trump a liar and a hypocrite for his actions in Syria.
In April 2017, the United States fired 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield in its first direct attack on Syrian government positions since the start of the war there.
The Pentagon said at the time that the attack on the Shayrat air base was in retaliation for Assad regime’s use of nerve agents to attack its own people.
Trump said the Syrian attack on “innocent civilians” was “horrific” and caused “slow and brutal death to many”.
Gabbard criticized the United States at the time, describing the strike as “dangerous, reckless and unconstitutional,” and saying that Trump acted “recklessly”.
