Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard begins fielding senators’ questions

Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard began meeting Monday with the Senate Republicans whose votes she will need to get confirmed, drawing questions on her past comments and actions.

Ms. Gabbard’s support for infamous leaker Edward Snowden and her 2017 visit with Syrian President Bashar Assad, the dictator whose regime fell to rebel forces this weekend, were among the topics that came up Monday, according to senators who met with her.

“We talked about her Syria visit, you know, talked about some of the things with Snowden and some of her previous comments,” said Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican. “So I wanted to be able to walk through some of the perspective; obviously, ODNI has a responsibility to be able to make sure we don’t have secrets leaked out.”

ODNI standards for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the agency that President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Ms. Gabbard to lead.

Mr. Lankford said he felt comfortable with her responses to his questions and they had a “very good meeting,” but said he has not yet taken a position on supporting her nomination.

Mr. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, has said his release of classified information about U.S. surveillance programs was a whistleblower effort to expose government abuse.

The U.S. government brought espionage charges against him, and he has remained on the lam in countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the U.S. He has spent the last several years in Russia and is now a citizen of that country.

While serving in Congress, Ms. Gabbard cosponsored legislation calling on the government to drop all charges against Mr. Snowden and promised during her 2020 presidential campaign to protect whistleblowers like him.

“If it wasn’t for Snowden, the American people would never have learned the NSA was collecting phone records and spying on Americans,” she said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast at the time.

Ms. Gabbard also raised eyebrows for a 2017 meeting with Mr. Assad in Damascus. The Syrian president fled to Moscow after rebel forces invaded Damascus this weekend.

While Ms. Gabbard will not have a direct role in determining U.S. relations with Syria moving forward, she would be involved in intelligence gathering that could inform other officials making those decisions.

Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican, said Ms. Gabbard’s 2017 meeting with Mr. Assad “is not of concern to me, simply going and visiting with someone.”

“What you have to be concerned about is do they espouse a view, expressing a point of view from that organization that might be different than what our positions are,” he said.

Mr. Rounds did not express any concerns from his Monday meeting with Ms. Gabbard, which is the first time he said he has ever met her in person.

While he was not ready to commit to voting for her, he said it’s still early in the process and that he and Ms. Gabbard discussed the mechanics of that in addition to the substance of her views.

“Part of our job here, it is not only getting to the point of approval — because that’s well over a month away yet — but helping to provide assistance in getting her there,” he said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, had the most familiarity with Ms. Gabbard among the senators who met with her Monday.

“I know her. I like her. I served in a reserve unit with her,” he said. “I tend to defer to presidential picks.”

However, Mr. Graham expects his colleagues to have questions for Ms. Gabbard about her past comments that repeat Russian propaganda.

“I don’t think she’s a Russian agent. She may have a different view of foreign policy than I do,” Mr. Graham said. “That’s not disqualifying.”