I have known Tulsi Gabbard for more than a decade.
She will be an intelligent, tough, and relentless leader of the American intelligence community.
The establishment will presently smear, attack, and spread misinformation about her. It is trying to protect the inefficient, often dishonest, and sometimes corrupt intelligence community which has grown up since the Cold War.
In the middle of the 2020 presidential campaign, 51 senior intelligence officials signed a totally false letter suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop story might be a Russian hoax. You knew then there was something sick about the system. Antony Blinken orchestrated the entire charade, and then he became Secretary of State. This makes it even more dishonest and corrupt.
Politicized collusion aside, the intelligence community has a mixed record of analyzing the threats on which it was established to inform us.
It consistently underestimated the Taliban and led the Biden administration to believe the withdrawal from Afghanistan could be orderly and manageable.
It was totally wrong about Russian and Ukrainian capabilities. Recall Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley told Congress the Russians would be in Kiev in three days.
These failures of intelligence do not come cheaply – or from lack of effort. The American people are spending $91.3 billion on intelligence spread across 18 different agencies.
Congress created the Director of National Intelligence in 2005 to develop better coordination and control over the widely dispersed intelligence systems and their funding.
We need a Director of National Intelligence with the intelligence to understand all these agencies and the mental toughness to insist on accountability and change.
Tulsi Gabbard is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve who served in Iraq, Kuwait, and the Horn of Africa. She has seen war in the Middle East, and she approaches endless conflicts with great skepticism about what they accomplish for America.
She served four terms on the House Armed Services Committee. Last term, she was on the Subcommittee on Intelligence and participated in classified briefings and oversight on the intelligence community.
So, the opposition to Gabbard is not based on her lack of experience.
The opposition to Gabbard comes from two fears.
The first is misguided. Some are worried she is pro-Syrian or pro-Russian because she is cautious about putting young Americans lives on the line in even more conflicts.
The second fear is legitimate (if you are part of the establishment). She is a skeptical outsider who seeks to break up the incestuous community which dominates our intelligence systems.
Most Americans have grown tired of never-ending wars. Defeat after 23 years in Afghanistan is a bitter pill to swallow – and hard to explain to the families of the 4,000 dead Americans and tens of thousands of wounded veterans. Having a skeptic at the head of the intelligence community is exactly what the American people want.
As you watch the assault on Gabbard’s nomination, remember Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer’s warning that intelligence agencies have “six ways from Sunday to get back at” anyone who crosses them.
Consider these facts: During Trump’s first term, the CIA unleashed an unprecedented wave of leaks. Their only purpose was undercutting Trump’s agenda and settling political scores. In the final two years of the Obama administration, there were 55 criminal referrals for possibly illegal leaks. In Trump’s first two years, there were more than 200.
Trump’s second term must be different. That means hiring a different kind of Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard is that different kind of director.
The headlines speak for themselves: In Defense One, an article declared that “Intelligence community insiders warn against Trump’s DNI pick.” Over at TIME, “Trump’s Pick of Tulsi Gabbard Alarms Intelligence Community.” And at Reuters, “Spy world vexed by Trump choice of Gabbard as US intelligence chief.”
These headlines are not marks against Gabbard. They are powerful endorsements.
The agencies fear Gabbard because she isn’t part of the club and doesn’t accept its assumptions. They fear her because she will reject plans to spy on American citizens, rather than see them as a routine part of doing business. They fear her because she will counsel the President that war, interventionism, and conflict are not in America’s best interests – and that America is capable of protecting itself without supplying and funding a half-dozen proxy wars.
In short, the intelligence community doesn’t want to be led by a skeptic. As a skeptic, Gabbard is exactly who President Trump and the American people need.
For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.
