Many people will have long forgotten Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who brought to light American espionage activities almost twelve years ago and has now been nationalized. But on Thursday he, together with the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and the newly chased Syrian Bashar al-Assad, is central to the Senate hearing of Tulsi Gabbard. She is Trumps intended director of the intelligence services: the Presiden main funnel of secret information about all the threats in the world. A position for which in the eyes of senators of both parties she not only misses relevant experience, but also the estimation capacity, it appears during her hearing.
Republicans and Democrats agree on little, but most share horror for the three men for whom Gabbard has pronounced her sympathy. She doesn’t want to revoke that appreciation in the Senate. She is repeatedly asked if, like the intelligence community to which she must lead, she finds Snowden ‘a traitor’. She refuses to answer that question with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. She does not get any further than “Snowden the law”. She praises him that he made “scandalous, illegal and unconstitutional practices” public. In the past she has called him “brave” and argued that he would get grace.
The question is whether that for the Republican senators in and outside the committee that belonged to her is an obstacle to name her. Gabbard (43), former army reservist and former Democratic representative from Hawaii, is probably Trumps weakest link in his intended cabinet. In addition to experience in the intelligence world, she also lacks a vocal supporters, such as Republicans who do have in this government. Her colleague Democratic defector Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has a crowd of its own fans and voters, who came to the Senate in a good number on Thursday. At Gabbard, the room is not completely full.
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If the Republicans dare to stumble one of Trumps candidates, there is a good chance that it will be. When all Democrats vote against her appointment, she may not lose more than three Republican voices.
Cross -hearing
Hearings in the Senate are not job interviews or facts where politicians are approaching a candidate with real curiosity, as it turns out again at Gabbard. Sincere questions that senators have, they were able to ask her in one-on-one conversations prior to the public cross-hearing. That spectacle is primarily intended to heaven a candidate of his own party and to play buyers. Or to grill a candidate from the counterparty. And to produce sound bites as a senator that make the news and give some virality on social media.
Hearing room SD106 is decorated old -fashioned, with wooden paneling and heavy green curtains, but explicitly equipped for television. Bright lamps that could illuminate a sports stadium during a evening game shine Gabbard, in a completely white suit. In her opening talk she turns against the intelligence services. “Too long have inadequate, inadequate or armed information led to valuable failures and the undermining of our national security and freedoms given by God, laid down in our Constitution.”
She does not address them to the senators, but immediately to the audience at home – or the one -person audience in the White House – when she says: “You will hear lies and defamation about me today who will discuss my loyalty and love for our country couples. ”
She does not make clear which senators lie about Gabbard when the interrogation. It is obvious that she had often let herself fool herself, for example through sources and contacts that helped her with her travels to the Middle East. She once met Assad in Syria, during the civil war there.
Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she also spread the propaganda that then President Joe Biden and NATO Russia had provoked it. To the question whose fault is the war in Ukraine, she answers: “Putin started the invasion of Ukraine.”
It is remarkable that not only democratic senators make the Gabbard difficult. Republicans, who usually affectionately appeal to her as Tulsi instead of Colonel Gabbard, are also critical. A contrast with, for example, the hearing of the controversial defense minister Pete Hegseeth and that of Kash Patel, the intended FBI boss that will also be heard on Thursday.
Gabbard expresses itself ‘offended’ by a question about her feelings for Russia by Jerry Moran (Kansas). Senator Susan Collins (Maine), a regular dissident among the Republicans, starts over Snowden. James Lankford (Oklahoma) and Todd Young (Indiana) saw her further.
Young, which is mentioned as a possible vote, seems to want to help her through A tweet from Snowden to read that encourages her to take away from him. But even that doesn’t get her moving. “It would be useful (…) if you at least acknowledging that he had damaged national security,” said Young. It doesn’t happen.
It will be that Gabbard – with many other Americans – Snowden sincerely finds a hero and not a traitor. But by getting to the senators in any way, she has made it extra difficult for herself to become the director of the intelligence services. In that job she would not manage secret agents, but an agency of two thousand officials leads that it is mainly responsible for the safety briefing that the president receives every morning.
Humble
Four floors higher in the Senate presents Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On Thursday as a proponent of vaccinations, although he built his entire political career on resistance against it. He says he “apologizes for all the statements that people have misled.” His appointment seems to depend on the voice of the chairman of the Public Health Committee Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), who himself is a doctor.
Also Kash Patel, a bombastic stick fire that previously said the ‘Deep State‘FBI wanting to dismantle and want to prosecute sixty political enemies, is humble. The former prosecutor even broke with Trump. “I disagree with the conversion of the punishment of every individual who used violence to the police,” he said about the grace for all Capitol stormers. His appointment seems to be in jugs and jugs.
After Gabbards hearing, some supporters are also dissatisfied with her performance. “She should have prepared better,” it sounds in the corridor in the Senate. The Republican Lankford is surprised afterwards about Gabbards setup. “It is universally accepted that someone who steals a million pages of top secret documents and gives the Russians betrays,” he said. “It was not a bow question.”