Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence community, was “compromised.”
Host Dana Bash said, “Let’s turn to former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who the president elect tapped to serve as Director of National Intelligence. She’s a critic of U.S. intelligence operations. She has promoted Russian propaganda. Your fellow Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, called her, ‘likely a Russian asset.’ Now, you and Tulsi Gabbard are both veterans. You served with her in the House what do you think of her?”
Duckworth said, “Well, I think she’s compromised. I think by going to Syria and basically um, backing you know, a brutal dictator there. I mean Russian controlled media called her a Russian asset. So I do think that we have a real deep concern whether or not she’s a compromised person.”
She added, “The U.S. intelligence community has identified her as having troubling relationships with America’s foes. So my worry is that she couldn’t pass a background check.”
Bash said, “So you know, you are a Democrat. You are in the minority now in the United States Senate. If she can find the votes among Republicans likely to get confirmed, it sounds like that would worry you to have her in that job.”
Duckworth said, “Very much so. She has no intelligence background whatsoever. When she was inIraq she was a medical records clerk A-4 below the rank of sergeant. Her second deployment was actually to Kuwaiti naval base, where she only spent three months training the Kuwaiti military. I don’t know of any intelligence work that she has done. So she is in terms of the intelligence community, very unqualified. Plus she is potentially compromised and could be and has is there questions about whether or not she is now a Russian asset.”
She added, “I think that she is someone who is wholly backing and supportive of Putin, and I worry that she will not have America’s best interests at heart.”
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