Neocons continue to gnash teeth over the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI), questioning her loyalty and ability to serve as a trusted American intelligence partner to allies. The New Republic reports that Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba has been deployed to appear on Fox News or other friendly media to challenge media allegations that Gabbard had cozy ties with Syria’s now deposed President Bashar al-Assad. The New Republic insists on rehashing the same allegations, referring to Gabbard’s 2017 trip to Syria including her meeting with Assad.
“Gabbard has been criticized for her coziness with a slew of autocratic leaders,” it repeats, “including Assad, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.” And, “when Trump nominated her to become the next director of national intelligence, the reaction in Moscow was reportedly `gleeful.’”
According to [Politico Dec. 9](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/0 9/tulsi-gabbard-offense-syria-00193241), Gabbard began a round of meetings on Capitol Hill with Republican Senators Lindsey Graham (SC), Mike Rounds (SD) and James Lankford (OK), with more to come later in the week with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. She is described as confident about stating her case and looking forward to taking on her critics. Fortunately, she won’t have to meet crazy John Bolton, who caterwauls that Gabbard has “an inclination to believe the most outrageous propaganda against the United States by some of its strongest enemies.”
