TOI correspondent from Washington: She was called a “Russian asset” and put on a terrorist watchlist; she’s now Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence (DNI). He was accused by his own Republican colleagues of sexual misconduct, including paying minors to have sex with him at drug parties; Trump has nominated him for US Attorney General. This, on top of a mid-ranking ex-soldier for Defense Secretary, and two wealthy tech bros to cull government employees and expenditure.
MAGA supremo and President-elect Donald Trump continued his rampage against the so-called Washington establishment and “Deep State” elites on Wednesday with audacious picks for key jobs in his administration. Among the shock nominees is Tulsi Gabbard, a self-professed Hindu-American, Krishna devotee, and a former Democratic Congresswoman from Hawaii, who Trump named to head the DNI, which has oversight of 18 intelligence agencies.
Considered one of the most powerful jobs in Washington, the Director of National Intelligence serves as the head of the US Intelligence Community, overseeing and directing implementation of the National Intelligence Program and acting as the principal advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to national security. The office also produces the President’s Daily Brief (PBD), the latest top secret intel from hotspots around the world that the President looks at first thing in the morning.
Gabbard parted ways with the Democratic Party in 2022 after disagreements over national security issues where she opposed Washington’s penchant for endless wars and an adversarial relationship with Russia. Pilloried by her party members as a “Russian asset” and (according to her) put on a terrorist watch-list, she moved to Trump and his MAGA-sphere soon after and was on the short-list for his veep running mate and defense secretary before landing the most coveted intel job in the US.
The nomination sent shock waves through Washington, including in the Republican Party, where its majority of 53-47 in the Senate will have to confirm her nomination. Although Trump has a stranglehold on the party, four GOP grandees — and there are thought to be more — can torpedo the nomination.
Commentators, editorialists, and lawmakers reacted with alarm to the nomination. “I am appalled at the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to lead DNI. As a Member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security,” Abigail Spanberger, a Democratic lawmaker and former CIA case officer wrote in a post on X, adding, “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.”
Trump’s MAGA acolytes rejoiced at the nomination, calling it the “biggest F-you to the Deep State Swamp.” One supporter wrote: “There is no evidence whatsoever that Tulsi is a Russian asset. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. It’s just something that anti-Assad and pro-Ukraine types made up when her perfectly sensible America First analysis didn’t align with their agenda.”
Born in American Samoa in 1981 to Carol and Mike Gabbard, Gabbard is the fourth of five children, all brought up in the Brahma Madhwa Gaudiya Sampradaya that her mother embraced following her introduction to the Krishan movement in the United States. She named her five children Bhakti, Jai, Aryan, Tulsi, and Vrindavan.
Gabbard, a vegetarian, married Abraham Williams, a cinematographer in a Hindu ceremony in 2015 (they are since divorced). The wedding was attended by, among others, then BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav, who flew in from India with a special message and gift from Prime Minister Modi, and India’s then acting ambassador and charge d’affairs in Washington, Taranjit Sandhu. She also took oath in Congress on the Bhagavad Gita, and later presented the same copy to Prime Minister Modi in New York.