Senate confirms Gabbard to serve as nation’s top intelligence chief

 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5140620-senate-confirms-tulsi-gabbard-intelligence-chief/

The Senate voted largely along party lines Wednesday to confirm Tulsi Gabbard to serve as the director of national intelligence, the nation’s top intelligence official, despite strong objections from Democrats and initial misgivings from Republicans who questioned her experience and judgment.

Gabbard is seen as a “disruptor” in the mold of other Trump nominees, such as Pete Hegseth, who was confirmed last month to lead the Pentagon. Trump allies say she will shake up the nation’s intelligence community, which they claim has become “weaponized” against Trump.

Democrats argued that Gabbard is not qualified to serve as the nation’s top intelligence boss and has shown tremendous lapses in judgment by disputing a finding by the U.S. intelligence community that Assad, the former Syrian president, had used chemical weapons against his own people and by echoing Putin’s rationale for invading Ukraine.

“By any objective measure and by every objective measure as well, she is not qualified. From the moment she was nominated, both Democrats and Republicans were puzzled by the choice,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said on the floor before her vote.

“Of all people Donald Trump could have picked to oversee national intelligence, he picked someone known for repeating Russian propaganda and getting duped by conspiracy theories,” he said.