Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard avoided answering questions about the intelligence on Iran she briefed to President Donald Trump, during the Senate Intelligence Committee’s annual threat hearing yesterday. Alongside Gabbard at the witness table were CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. James Adams III, and acting director of the National Security Agency as well as acting commander of U.S. Cyber Command Lt. Gen. William Hartman.
Gabbard repeatedly deflected questions about the intelligence she had offered Trump reported AP, reportedly exasperating committee Democrats who tried to use a rare public forum to extract answers about the widening conflict in southwest Asia. She sidestepped when asked by Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the committee, whether she had advised Trump that Iran would attack Gulf nations and shut down the strait if the country were targeted by U.S. strikes. “I have not and won’t divulge internal conversations. I will say that those of us within the intelligence community continue to provide the president with all of the best objective intelligence available to inform his decisions,” she said.
Hours after the hearing, Gabbard wrote on social media that it was up to Trump to decide whether Iran posed a threat. She did not mention her own views of the strikes—including the hit on the girls’ school in Minab—and asserted at the outset of the hearing that she intended to deliver the perspectives of the intelligence agencies, as opposed to her own viewpoints.
The witnesses, under questioning from Sen. Angus King, did acknowledge that the intelligence community had long warned that, were Iran to come under attack, Tehran would seek to take control of the Strait of Hormuz, contrary to what Trump has claimed in recent days.
“What I can tell you is that Iran had specific plans to hit U.S. interests in energy sites across the region,” Ratcliffe said. “And that’s why the Department of War and the Department of State took measures for force protection and personnel protection in advance of Operation Epic Fury. I think that’s what’s most important.”
When King asked Gabbard specifically about Hormuz, she said only: “I think Director Ratcliffe made the point here, is that this has long been an assessment of the IC that Iran would likely hold the Strait of Hormuz as leverage.”
None of the witnesses tried to answer King’s central question: Why was Trump saying nobody knew, when the IC knew for years what Iran would do if the U.S. were to attack?
