Critics say Tulsi Gabbard’s ambitions and conspiracy theories she peddled defined and marred her short-lived tenure as the United States’ most powerful intelligence official.
Gabbard’s spokesperson described her 15-month stint as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence as one of “unprecedented transparency, record-breaking declassifications, historic operational reforms, and a relentless focus on putting Americans first.”
But Democrats said Gabbard’s use of conspiracy theories to gain political support doomed her. They said Gabbard will be remembered for her willingness to please Trump — at seemingly any cost —and, most dangerously, her violation of rules put in place to prevent U.S. intelligence agencies from meddling in American politics.
Gabbard’s public declaration that she had found evidence of a “treasonous conspiracy” by former President Barack Obama and her role in the seizure of 2020 election records in Fulton County, Georgia, were cited by Democrats as a return to the abuses of the Cold War, when the CIA spied on Americans.
“Her other legacy is lack of respect for guardrails between intelligence and domestic law enforcement,” a U.S. official with knowledge of the intelligence community told MS NOW.
Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard, bluntly dismissed those criticisms.
“The description you cite is false, and frankly, insulting,” Coleman told MS NOW. “DNI Gabbard began a transformational effort to reshape the Intelligence Community in ways no predecessor had ever attempted.”
Critics said Gabbard, who announced Friday that her last day as DNI will be June 30, came into the job vowing to expose vast conspiracies involving the 2020 election; the JFK, MLK and RFK assassinations; Amelia Earhart’s disappearance; UFOs and myriad other topics. But she failed to prove any of them.
“That’s a fair characterization,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW on Friday. “Tulsi is best understood through her ambition.”
Himes said Gabbard, a 45-year-old former Army major from Hawaii who served in Iraq, hoped to rise politically by pleasing Trump and his MAGA base and potentially position herself to run for president in 2028 as a Republican. But Trump’s interventions in Venezuela and war with Iran ran counter to Gabbard’s track record of opposing foreign wars.
“Her underlying motive, though, was to win the love of Trump and perhaps to displace Rubio and Vance as the MAGA dauphin,” Himes said. “Trump’s interventionist tack, in Venezuela and especially Iran, made that totally impossible.”
