President Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, faced tough questions Thursday from several Republican senators at her confirmation hearing over her past praise for intelligence leaker Edward Snowden and her shifting views on an electronic surveillance program supported by senators whose votes she needs.
Gabbard, trying to reassure the GOP lawmakers while accounting for her previous progressive positions, struck a more critical tone on Snowden despite having held him up as a crusading whistleblower. But she declined to answer whether she viewed him as a “traitor.”
"I'm focused on the future and how we can prevent something like this from happening again," Gabbard said to Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., after he twice asked if she believed Snowden was a traitor.
Gabbard, a former congresswoman from Hawaii who once ran for the Democratic presidential nomination before leaving the party and backing Trump, also sidestepped specific questions from Republican lawmakers about her views on the surveillance program that Snowden helped expose.
Republicans hold a narrow 9-8 majority on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which held the hearing and has the first vote on Gabbard’s nomination. The questions from some of the Republican members raised the possibility that Gabbard may not secure their support.
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