Claims that Tulsi Gabbard is a so-called Russian asset, spy, or agent have resurfaced after Donald Trump picked the Democrat-turned-Republican for Director of National Intelligence on Wednesday. A statement from the Trump campaign says that the former Democratic congresswoman for Hawaii joined as co-chair of Trump’s transition team in August due to him transforming the Republican Party into “a party of peace.” On the other side, Democrats have criticized her for spreading Russian propaganda.
Why is Tulsi Gabbard being called a Russian agent?
Tulsi Gabbard has been labelled a Russian agent since 2019 after Hillary Clinton implied that she was being ‘groomed’ by the Kremlin during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
As reported by CNN in October 2019, Clinton said Russia was looking at “someone who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be a third-party candidate.” Considering the women running for President at the time, the comment was narrowed down to Gabbard. In response, she posted on X: “Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.”
During a Democratic debate, via CBS, Gabbard blamed mainstream media outlets for continuing the claim: “Just two days ago, The New York Times put out an article saying that I’m a Russian asset and an Assad apologist. This morning, a CNN commentator said on national television that I’m an asset of Russia. Completely despicable.”
Gabbard faced another controversy in 2022, the same year she left the Democratic Party, when she tweeted that the U.S. funded bio labs in Ukraine. Her detractors stated, per Newsweek, that she was parroting Kremlin propaganda attempting to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As reported by The Week, Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation also denounced Gabbard for “promoting Russian propaganda.”
That said, Newsweek notes that she is technically correct that U.S. and Ukraine had been researching deadly pathogens since 2005 as part of the Pentagon’s Biological Threat Reduction Program.
In a National Guard Association conference in August, per The Guardian, Gabbard endorsed Trump and criticized the Biden administration for making the US face “multiple wars on multiple front” and was confident that Trump’s first task in office would be “to walk us back from the brink of war.”
Trump also picked Tom Homan, Elon Musk, and Pete Hegseth as a part of his 2024 cabinet.
