A top spy chief has issued a chilling warning to Donald Trump, cautioning him over Tulsi Gabbard‘s nomination as Director of National Intelligence.
Former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in Britain, Sir John Sawers, described Gabbard’s possible ascension to the top espionage post as ‘difficult’, and said there appears to be no ‘overall global plan’ behind Trump’s pick.
‘I think senators have got a lot of responsibility to ensure that only people who are suited to top jobs get through to them, especially those in the most sensitive areas,’ Sawers told CNN on Saturday.
‘The United States is the most powerful intelligence community in the world, and one of its biggest challenges is Russia, and another (of its) biggest challenges is China.’
The spy chief raised concerns over Gabbard’s ‘pro-Russian’ positions through her career, with critics also pointing to her past remarks on former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad as ‘not an enemy’ after she controversially met with him in 2017.
‘To have someone who’s a director of national intelligence who basically takes a very pro-Russian approach, well, that strikes me as very difficult, and it makes it difficult for America’s partners as well,’ Sawers continued.
‘How do you deal with an intelligence community where the most senior figure in it, the Cabinet member in it, is basically sympathetic to our biggest enemy.’
Sawers’ comments come as Gabbard’s nomination hangs in the balance after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth passed this week by the narrowest of margins, with at least three Republican Senators indicating they will not vote to confirm her.
A top spy chief has issued a chilling warning to President Trump cautioning him over Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as Director of National Intelligence
Sir John Sawers, the former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in Britain, raised concerns over Gabbard’s ‘pro-Russian’ positions through her career this week
The same Republican Senators who rejected Hegseth, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have all said they will also not support Gabbard.
Hegseth needed a tiebreaking vote from JD Vance to confirm him as Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary after a last-minute meeting with on-the-fence GOP Senator Thom Tillis.
Upon hearing the outcome, Vance joked on social media: ‘I thought I was done voting in the senate.’
With all 50 Democrats expected to vote against her, this means Gabbard can’t afford to lose even one more Republican vote when her confirmation hearing begins on January 30.
Gabbard, a former Democrat congresswoman from Hawaii, has struggled to pick up support from any members of her old party since she moved to Trump during the election.
She has made tackling the so-called ‘Deep State’ a hallmark of her political shift, which like Hegseth and FBI pick Kash Patel has infuriated some in Washington.
Patel, a former federal prosecutor who worked in Trump’s first administration, has publicly stated on numerous occasions how he wants to dismantle the ‘Deep State’ and even published a book about federal corruption in 2023 titled ‘Government Gangsters.’
Gabbard has also been skeptical of the intelligence community and even displayed her defiance by visiting former Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad on her own accord in 2017 on what she deemed a ‘fact finding mission.’
They are expected to cut against the status-quo and bring in a new era of Trump-friendly sentiment to the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Hegseth was accused of sexual assault in 2017 but he denied the claims and was never charged. Though a report surfaced Thursday indicating he paid he accuser $50,000
Following Hegseth’s confirmation this week, Donald Trump appeared upbeat as he declared ‘winning is what matters’ in his first remarks on the approval on Friday.
Trump was on the tarmac at LAX after visiting the California wildfires Friday, when he was asked his thoughts on the confirmation after saying he’d spoken to Hegseth.
‘We just heard that we have a great Secretary of Defense, we’re very happy about that and we appreciate everybody’s vote,’ Trump said under the noise of Air Force One.
When asked about McConnell’s ‘no’ vote, which Trump had jokingly predicted earlier in the day, the president responded: ‘I didn’t know that, I just know that we won.’
When pressed again on McConnell’s vote, he once again said he didn’t know that it had happened and repeated: ‘I just heard that we won. Winning is what matters, right?’