Important Takeaways:

• Trust in the intelligence community is at an “all-time low,” Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence (DNI), said during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.
  • “I’m honored and grateful to President Trump for his trust and confidence in nominating me to serve our country as the Director of National Intelligence at a time when trust in the intelligence community, unfortunately, is at an all-time low,” Gabbard said during her opening statement, citing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who “admitted a few years ago, quote, ‘You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.’”
  • “For too long, faulty, inadequate or weaponized intelligence have led to costly failures and the undermining of our national security and God-given freedoms enshrined in the Constitution,” she said before laying out several of these failures by name, beginning with the invasion of Iraq.
• She said:
  • The most obvious example of one of these failures is our invasion of Iraq based upon a total fabrication or complete failure of intelligence. This disastrous decision led to the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers, millions of people in the Middle East, mass migration, destabilization and undermining of the security and stability of our European allies, the rise of ISIS, strengthening of al Qaeda and other Islamist jihadist groups, and strengthening Iran.
• Gabbard listed a host of other examples, many of which occurred under President Joe Biden’s watch.
  • “The American people elected Donald Trump as their president, not once, but twice, and yet, the FBI and intelligence agencies were politicized by his opponents to undermine his presidency and falsely portray him as a puppet of Putin,” she said. “Title I of FISA was used illegally to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, using a Clinton campaign-funded false dossier as their so-called evidence.”
  • “Biden campaign adviser Tony Blinken was the impetus for the 51 former senior intelligence officials’ letter dismissing Hunter Biden’s laptop as disinformation, specifically to help Biden win the election,” she continued.
  • “Former DNI James Clapper lied to this committee in 2013, denying the existence of programs that facilitated the mass collection of millions of Americans’ phone and internet records, yet was never held accountable,” she said. “Under John Brennan’s leadership, the CIA abused its power to spy on Congress to dodge oversight, lied about doing it until he was caught and yet has never been held responsible.”
• Further, Gabbard continued, the FBI “abused its power for political reasons to try to surveil Catholics who attend traditional Latin Mass, labeling them as quote, unquote, radical traditionalist Catholics” — all of which happened under Biden’s watch.
  • “Personally, just 24 hours after I criticized Kamala Harris and her nomination, I was placed on a secret domestic terror watch list called Quiet Skies,” Gabbard revealed. “Sadly, there are more examples.”
• Gabbard said such weaponization must end, contending that this is something that comes with the mandate the American people issued to President Trump.

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