Tulsi Gabbard’s biography has some rare distinctions, including being the first Samoan and the first Hindu elected to the US Congress, where she sat between 2013 and 2021 as the Democratic representative for Hawaii.
But nothing marks her out so much as being almost certainly the only prospective head of American intelligence to have been publicly suspected of being “groomed” by Russia – a suggestion made by Hillary Clinton, Trump’s defeated Democratic opponent when he was first elected president, in a 2019 podcast.
The accusation is now startlingly relevant given Gabbard’s prominent place in the nascent administration being assembled by Donald Trump, who on Wednesday picked Gabbard, 43, to be director of national intelligence, sending shockwaves through US national security circles.
If confirmed by the Senate, Gabbard would oversee 18 intelligence agencies – including the CIA and FBI – that employ more than 70,000 people engaged in collating and safeguarding the country’s most sensitive secrets.
Clinton, the former US secretary of state, made her comments at a time when Gabbard was running as a candidate in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 presidential election.
Referring to supposed Russian interference, Clinton told the former Barack Obama adviser David Plouffe: “I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favourite of the Russians.”
Clinton provided no proof and did not explicitly name Gabbard, although her identity was clear from the context. But the comments crystallised concern about Gabbard’s stances on international affairs.
A military veteran who served in Iraq, she emerged as a vocal critic of “warmongering” US foreign policy, not just publicly opposing American intervention in the Syrian war but also voicing scepticism about reported atrocities attributed to the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.
In 2017, she made a secret visit to Syria to meet Assad, and told him: “Syria is not the enemy of the United States.”
Gabbard’s attacks on US foreign policy originally chimed with many on the left. She was a surrogate for Bernie Sanders, the progressive senator for Vermont, in his 2016 Democratic primary campaign and even delivered his nomination speech at that year’s national party convention in Philadelphia.
Her own presidential campaign in 2020 was distinguished by a surprise debate attack on fellow candidate Kamala Harris, whom she accused of sending marijuana users to jail when she was a prosecutor in California.
After ending her campaign, Gabbard endorsed Joe Biden – but her populist profile may already have been bringing her to the attention of Trump.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Gabbard issued a social media message that reinforced the concerns voiced by Clinton – and is likely to be cited by intelligence insiders as they contemplate her forthcoming role.
“Dear Presidents Putin, Zelensky, and Biden,” she said in a video posted on Twitter.
“It’s time to put geopolitics aside and embrace the spirit of aloha, respect and love, for the Ukrainian people by coming to an agreement that Ukraine will be a neutral country—i.e. no military alliance with NATO or Russia—thus..alleviate the legitimate security concerns of both US/NATO countries and Russia, because there would be no Russian or NATO troops on each other’s borders (non-Baltic). This would allow the Ukrainian people to live in peace. Aloha.”
Later that year, Gabbard quit the Democrats to become an independent, saying the party was run by an “elitist cabal of warmongers” and “woke” ideologues.
She subsequently campaigned for prominent Republicans, became a contributor to Fox News and started her own podcast – all moves seemingly tailor-made to bring her into the orbit of Trump, whom she eventually endorsed.
By the 2024 election campaign, she was established as one of the Republican nominee’s most popular celebrity backers. She was rewarded with a place on his transition team, serving alongside fellow ex-Democrat Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Her status as a Trump intimate was apparent when – partly thanks to her 2019 debate ambush of Harris – she helped prepare for his September presidential debate against the vice-president in Philadelphia.
Now, without intelligence experience or even having served as a member of House intelligence committee, she has been chosen to sit at the top of a pyramid overseeing the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, among other organisations.
Some experts are sceptical of the influence of a position created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks with the brief of coordinating multiple and disparate intelligence bodies but which insiders say is, in reality, less important than the CIA director’s role.
Yet having Trump’s ear might help Gabbard overcome this, given his stated determination to overhaul a national security apparatus that he believes is part of a “deep state” dedicated to thwarting him.
“The CIA director is the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” an unnamed former senior Trump administration official told Politico. “But if someone had juice with the president and really wanted to make it a reform instrument, he or she could have a lot of power.”
