With Matt Gaetz out of the picture, the left and the GOP establishment have turned their guns on Tulsi Gabbard as their next target. President-elect Donald Trump selected Gabbard to be his Director of National Intelligence, and while one has a right to question whether there is anything in her background or experience that qualifies her to lead America’s Intelligence Community, the direction the opposition is going is both unprincipled and unconstitutional.
For a time, the Biden-Harris administration placed Gabbard on a “Quiet Skies” watch list. While not a terrorism watch list per se, Quiet Skies did subject Americans to enhanced screening and scrutiny based on her “overseas travel and foreign connections.”
President-elect Donald Trump's intel pick Tulsi Gabbard was briefly placed on a government watch list for overseas travel and foreign connections earlier this year https://t.co/SD2k9gYXd6
— CNN (@CNN) November 22, 2024
Gabbard was an officer in the US Army Reserve at the time. We don’t know what “briefly” means, and all of this begs the question of how the federal government was aware of her “overseas travel and foreign connections.” This attack is reminiscent of the way that the Obama Administration placed Carter Page under illegal FISA monitoring, leaked the fact that the surveillance existed, and then used the illegal spying as evidence that Page was a foreign agent. It is also a political “heckler’s veto.” It gives the bureaucracy the power to eliminate potential threats by placing them on some sort of “watch list” controlled by bureaucrats and using that action as a disqualification for office.
The second line of attack against Gabbard is that she is “compromised.”
Here is Illinois Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth pushing the slander that Gabbard is a foreign agent of some sort.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth: Hegseth Is "Unqualified," Gabbard Is "Compromised," "Couldn't Pass A Background Check"
Full interview here – https://t.co/brfW6ZyT8L
"There are ways to be disrupters without actually putting people who have never run an organization larger than a platoon… pic.twitter.com/XHPJFC7757
— RCP Video (@rcpvideo) November 24, 2024
This is the same allegation on Anderson Cooper 360. The critical part starts at 0:38.
Sadly, Nikki Haley couldn’t resist the effort to get in a couple of licks. Go to 1:31 for the relevant segment.
While I might agree that Gabbard seems to have adopted Howard Zinn’s view that America’s foreign policy is the cause of all evil in the world, that doesn’t make her compromised. In my view, it makes her a terrible choice for any national security position, but that is a different story.
Finally, there is the unabashedly unconstitutional religious test applied to Gabbard. She is a Hindu sect, and that is being used as a line of attack.
Did you know that Tulsi Gabbard is also a longtime cult member? Her cult-an offshoot of the Hari Krishnas-is so whacked the Hari Krishnas want nothing to do with them. https://t.co/fzClsSdtNM pic.twitter.com/dtw3h8lqOE
— Claude Taylor (@TrueFactsStated) November 24, 2024
This same attack has been deployed against orthodox believers, no matter their religion. Recall that Catholic nominees are regularly grilled over their religion if they are to the right of the adulterous, blasphemous Joe Biden.
The Constitutional prohibition on religious tests for public office applies no matter your feelings about the religion.
Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearing should focus on whether she has the intellect and the character to effectively manage the US Intelligence Community. Slurs about her being compromised or her religion are off-limits. The fact that the Biden-Harris administration put her on a “watch list” is more of an indictment of the process that did that than any reflection on her. Yes, she does need to answer some hard questions about her vocal defense of Iran, meeting with Syria’s Assad, and some other statements, but none of that justifies calling her compromised.
