CNN
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In 2020, then-Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard introduced legislation calling on the federal government to drop all charges against Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who in 2013 revealed the existence of the bulk collection of American phone records by the NSA before fleeing to Russia.
On Thursday, she refused under persistent questioning by Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee to say whether she now believed Snowden’s actions were traitorous.
Gabbard’s repeated dodges during her nomination hearing to become President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence may have further imperiled a nomination that already appeared to be on a knife’s edge.
“Was he a traitor at the time when he took America’s secrets, released them in public and then ran to China and became a Russian citizen?” asked Republican Sen. James Lankford in a lengthy line of questioning that described the broad sense of the intelligence community that Snowden’s actions were tantamount to treason.
“I’m focused on the future and how we can prevent something like this from happening again,” Gabbard said. She sought to lay out reforms she would undertake to prevent future leaks on the scale of Snowden’s, including “making sure that every single person in the workforce knows about the legal whistleblower channels available to them.”
At other moments, she gave the same answer almost verbatim, an answer that suggests she still sees value in his actions: “Edward Snowden broke the law,” she said. But, she said, “He also, even as he broke the law, released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs that are happening within our government that led to serious reforms.”
Even when pressed multiple times for a yes-or-no answer by a visibly angry Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, Gabbard calmly and stolidly declined to give one.
Gabbard’s views on surveillance – and Snowden – had already disturbed Republicans on the committee, where she can’t afford to lose even a single GOP vote if she is to advance to the full Senate.
GOP Sen. Susan Collins, seen as a potentially wobbly vote, said after the hearing that she has still not decided yet whether she’ll support Gabbard.
“I want to make a careful decision,” the Maine Republican said.
Hinting at the pivotal role her views on surveillance are likely to play in her success or failure at the committee level, Gabbard was also pressed by Democratic Vice Chairman Sen. Mark Warner, among others, on an apparent about-face she has made on her views of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The law is seen by most lawmakers on the committee as a critical surveillance tool for protecting the United States from terrorism – but as a Democratic member of Congress, Gabbard had called for its wholesale repeal, but in closed-door meetings with Senate lawmakers over recent weeks, she has signaled her support for its use.
Gabbard said reforms had been made to the law since her time in Congress that had led her to support the law; Warner pressed her: “Which reforms?”
“There are a number of reforms –” she said. Warner pointed out that after the reforms were already passed into law, she told podcaster Joe Rogan that the reforms had made the law “worse.”
Republican Sen. John Cornyn at one point appeared to publicly quiz her on her basic understanding of Section 702; multiple sources familiar with her closed door meetings with lawmakers in advance of her confirmation said that some senators said she appeared to be conflating Section 702 and another part of FISA, Title I, which was used to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page, raising questions about whether she understood one of the government’s most significant surveillance authorities.
“What would be necessary to be shown to establish probable cause to a judge in order to obtain a warrant?” Cornyn asked, referring to a debate over whether a warrant should be required in order for the FBI to search Section 702 holdings for Americans’ information.
“That’s not for me to say,” Gabbard said.
“Do you know? What the elements of probable cause are and whether that’s a practical and workable solution?” Cornyn pressed.
In her prepared opening statement, Gabbard specifically stated that Title I of FISA had been used to surveil Page.
Gabbard was also questioned about – and defended against – some of the more sensational allegations against her, including claims from critics that she has publicly adopted Russian propaganda positions over the views of the United States. She sought to head off criticism that a controversial 2017 meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad raised questions about her judgment.
In a remarkably partisan opening statement for a nominee to lead the US intelligence community, Gabbard took aim at “political opponents” and “Democrat senators” who she said had fomented anti-Hindu bigotry against her over her connections to a fringe off-shoot of the Hare Krishna movement and painted her as a “puppet” of Trump, Russia and others.
“The fact is what truly unsettles my political opponents is I refuse to be their puppet,” Gabbard said.
“I want to warn the American people watching at home: You may hear lies and smears that challenge my loyalty to and love for our country,” she said. “They used the same tactic against President Trump and failed. The American people elected President Trump with a decisive victory and mandate for change.”
At one point, she told Republican Sen. Jerry Moran that she was “offended” by a question he asked about whether Russia would “get a pass in either your mind or your heart or in any policy recommendation you would make.”
Warner pressed Gabbard on statements in which she “blamed NATO for Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine” and “rejected the conclusion that Assad used chemical weapons in Syria, despite it being the unanimous assessment of the then-Trump administration’s DoD, State Department and IC.”
“It leads me to question whether you can develop the trust necessary to give our allies confidence that they can share their most sensitive intelligence with us,” said Warner. “Make no mistake about it, if they stop sharing that intelligence, the United States will be less safe.”
Warner questioned whether Gabbard had the “qualifications to meet the standards set by law.”
Gabbard has earned the endorsement of the committee chairman, Sen. Tom Cotton, who pointed to her military service record and emphasized that five FBI background checks were “clean as a whistle.”
