Tulsi Gabbard Exposes Deep State Operation Against Trump In Epic Opening Statement
Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, fired out of the gate Thursday morning, telling a packed committee hearing that she intends to overhaul a U.S. intelligence community that has been weaponized against her would-be boss throughout his political tenure.
The attacks on Trump began even before he defeated Hillary Clinton, Gabbard said in her opening statement.
“The American people elected Donald Trump not once but twice, and yet the American intelligence agencies were politicized by his opponents to undermine his presidency and falsely portray him as a puppet of Vladimir Putin,” Gabbard said in between resolute looks at members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.
With stark detail, the former Democratic congresswoman laid out a litany of offenses she pointed to in arguing for a systemic transformation at the FBI, CIA, NSA, and other clandestine intelligence-gathering services.
By abusing Section 1 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, political opponents of Trump “illegally obtained a warrant to spy on Trump’s campaign advisor Carter Page using a Clinton campaign-funded false dossier as their so-called evidence,” she explained.
In 2022, special counsel John Durham concluded that no connection existed between Russian operatives and the 2016 Trump campaign. Instead, authorities believe Russian actors manipulated social media to sow disinformation ahead of the election, but not necessarily to assist either Trump or Clinton.
Former Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken is believed to be the individual who, in 2020, coordinated a public letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials dismissing Hunter Biden’s laptop as a product of “Russian disinformation.”
This was done “specifically to help Biden win the election,” Gabbard asserted.
According to Gabbard, the rot in national intelligence existed years before Trump’s election campaign. She cited testimony by James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, who in 2013 told the committee that the federal government did not collect sensitive information on Americans without warrants, including “phone and internet records.”
Clapper “was never held accountable,” she said.
“Under [former director] John Brennan, the CIA abused its power to spy on Congress, to dodge oversight, and lied about it until he was caught, and yet has never been held responsible,” Gabbard went on.
Republicans have cited other instances of abuse by intelligence and national security forces, including the FBI’s “spying on Catholics who attend traditional Latin Mass, labeling them ‘radical traditionalist Catholics.’”
In a shocking revelation, Gabbard revealed that she was placed on a secret watchlist called “Quiet Skies” after publicly speaking out against former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Sadly, there are more examples,” she concluded. “The bottom line is this: This must end.”
Despite being in a class of the most controversial cabinet nominees in recent history, Gabbard faces an uphill battle in the nomination process. Republicans hold a one-seat majority on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and it’s not clear GOP leaders can muster the votes necessary to push her to the Senate floor. Politico reports that at least three Republicans on the committee are undecided about the former congresswoman as of Thursday morning.
