Trump picks former House Democrat Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence

President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he will nominate Tulsi Gabbard, a former House Democrat who became a high-profile Trump supporter, to be director of national intelligence.

“For over two decades, Tulsi has fought for our Country and Freedoms of all Americans,” Trump said in a statement. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!”

In her own statement Wednesday, Gabbard said she was grateful for the chance to "defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people" as a member of Trump's Cabinet.

"I look forward to getting to work," she added.

Gabbard announced shortly before the 2022 midterm elections that she was leaving the Democratic Party, which she accused in a video on X of “actively working to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.”

In August, she endorsed Trump, began working as a co-chair for his transition team and helped him prepare for his lone debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. Last month she formally announced she would join the Republican Party.

Gabbard ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race and ended her campaign in March 2020 to endorse Joe Biden. She also served in the House from 2013 to 2021 and was vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016.

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Gabbard is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve who served in the Hawaii Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq with a medical unit.

If she is confirmed, Gabbard will be the first person of color to be director of national intelligence, a position created by President George W. Bush. She would come to the job having never worked in the intelligence world or served on a congressional intelligence committee.

Gabbard has been widely criticized for her meeting in 2017 with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who had been accused of human rights violations and war crimes. She defended the meeting, telling MSNBC at the time, “We’ve got to be able to be willing to meet with whoever we need to if there is a possibility and a chance that that can help us take steps forward towards peace."

In 2019, Gabbard was one of the only House Democrats not to vote for Trump's first impeachment on charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress.

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Gabbard has also criticized the House Jan. 6 committee, arguing that the panel's first public hearing in June 2022 about its investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack was centered on achieving "political interests."

"They don't have their priorities straight. So much of this has been politicized. It's been sensationalized with very specific objectives that have nothing to do with upholding the Constitution," Gabbard said in an interview on Fox News in 2022.

After a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts in his hush money trial this year, Gabbard said in video remarks posted online that the Biden-Harris administration was responsible for the "personal political persecution of Donald Trump."

In her public statements, Gabbard has often been at odds with the U.S. intelligence community’s assessments, including government analysts who see Russian President Vladimir Putin government as the primary purveyor of disinformation designed to sow divisions in the United States.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, said she was "appalled" by Gabbard's selection for the nation's top intelligence post.

"Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin," Spanberger, D-Va., wrote on X. "As a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security. My Republican colleagues with a backbone should speak out."

Spanberger appeared to be referring to accusations lodged against Gabbard in 2022 that she promoted Russian propaganda by repeating Moscow’s unfounded allegations that the United States had funded biological weapons labs across Ukraine.

Gabbard had posted a video on social media characterizing the purported labs as "undeniable fact." But Ukraine’s government, the U.S. government, news organizations and independent researchers have all said there is no evidence for the claim, which originated from Moscow.