President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to serve as director of national intelligence, ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), tried to reassure GOP senators on Friday by issuing with a statement supporting a key spying tactic she once sought to repeal from law.
In a statement to Punchbowl’s Andrew Desiderio, Gabbard said, “Section 702, unlike other FISA authorities, is crucial for gathering foreign intelligence on non-U.S. persons abroad. This unique capability cannot be replicated and must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans.”
“My prior concerns about FISA were based on insufficient protections for civil liberties, particularly regarding the FBI’s misuse of warrantless search powers on American citizens. Significant FISA reforms have been enacted since my time in Congress to address these issues. If confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people,” Gabbard concluded.
Gabbard’s statement comes days after Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) spoke with the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel and identified Gabbard’s past support for the elimination of Section 702 of FISA as a key sticking point in the confirmation process.
Lankford stressed that he and his GOP colleagues wanted to ensure Gabbard had every opportunity to convince them she was fit for the job in a fair process, and told Strassel that her answering questions about her past stance on 702 would be a key component of winning them over.
Gabbard has traveled across the political spectrum from a progressive ally of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), to a Republican convert and MAGA influencer, but her support for 702 authority is a dramatic shift from her long-held anti-war, anti-interventionist attitudes.
“She has voted against what’s called 702 authority every time that she was in Congress and voted against it. Well, now she’s going to be the spokesman for 702 authority,” Lankford said, adding:
It’s a legitimate question just to say, okay, how are you going to handle this? What does that mean? Because if she comes out and says, “No, I want to oppose all 702 authority,” that literally shuts down all of our national defense gathering.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the chair of the Intelligence Committee, also offered a statement on the topic, saying, “Tulsi Gabbard has assured me in our conversations that she supports Section 702 as recently amended & that she will follow the law and support its reauthorization as DNI.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, moved to delay Gabbard’s hearing earlier in the week, citing the fact she had yet to return a questionnaire and her FBI background check had yet to be completed.
“I went in with a lot of questions. I’ve still got a lot of questions,” Warner told reporters on Capitol Hill after meeting Gabbard.
Gabbard has long been seen as one of Trump’s more controversial cabinet nominees, given that some of her past statements are viewed by critics as favorable to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Gabbard also viciously attacked Trump’s foreign policy during his first term, going so far as to accuse the then-president of “pimping” out U.S. troops and being Saudi Arabia’s “bitch.”
