Tulsi Gabbard Puts Out the Welcome Mat for Russian Interference

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testifying to the Senate intelligence committee on Wednesday. Rod Lamkey, Jr./AP

When Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appeared before the Senate intelligence committee this week to discuss the just-released annual Worldwide Threat Assessment produced by the intelligence community, much of the action focused on intelligence related to the Iran war. She reaffirmed Trump’s over-the-top claim that Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated” by US bombing strikes last June. But then she refused to say whether the intelligence community had concluded that Tehran, after that supposed obliteration, still posed an “imminent threat” to the United States prior to Trump launching his war against Iran. Still, she insisted that Trump was right to say that Iran presented an immediate danger and, with a good dose of folly, she added, “The only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.”

Actually, no. It is the job of the intelligence community—with its $100 billion budget—to determine and warn the president of imminent threats, based on the intelligence it collects and analyzes. Gabbard’s performance was quite the departure from past practices, when DNIs and intelligence chiefs acknowledged this obligation and answered questions about the intelligence community’s findings (without exposing classified information in public settings). Gabbard’s appearance was a reminder that Trump placed a political hack with little intelligence experience in this crucial post that oversees the entire intelligence community.

Gabbard’s answers—and non-answers—to questions about Iran and about her puzzling participation in the January FBI raid in Fulton County, Georgia, that seized nearly 700 boxes of ballots from the 2020 election drew the most attention. But there was a matter that came up during the hearing that warranted more notice than it received: the Trump administration’s unilateral surrender in the face of Russian information warfare aimed at the United States.

Sen. Mark Warner (R-Va.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, addressed this topic in his opening statement. His remarks are worth quoting at length:

For decades now, our intelligence community has warned that foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and Iran, are actively seeking to shape the outcome of American elections. These efforts have included cyber intrusions, disinformation campaigns, and covert influence operations designed to divide Americans and undermine our confidence in our democratic institutions. Protecting our elections from these threats should be one of the intelligence community’s highest priorities. The DNI is supposed to be coordinating intelligence on foreign election interreference, warning the American people about adversaries seeking to undermine our democracy, ensuring that federal, state, and local officials have the information they need.

 Congress even required the creation of a Foreign Malign Influence Center inside the office of the DNI to coordinate the intelligence community’s response to foreign election interference and ensure that these threats are properly shared across the government. That is the mission that Congress assigned to the DNI. But while foreign adversaries are actively probing our democratic institutions, the DNI has eliminated the Foreign Malign Influence Center, and does not have a designated official coordinating the response to election threats. And for months the committee has repeatedly requested briefings from the IC, briefings that are required under law, on legitimate foreign threats to the midterms. We have received no response. That silence…clearly demonstrates the DNI is not interested in protecting American democracy by combatting foreign influence.

This should be big news. Warner accurately pointed out that the Trump administration has shut down the offices set up throughout the national security community to track and counter attacks on US elections from foreign foes. And he was rightfully complaining that Trump’s DNI was violating the law and not providing Congress information about potential threats to the midterms, which could include Russian covert operations.

Warner remarked that Gabbard’s involvement in the Fulton County raid was “deeply troubling,” given that there was no “foreign connection to justify the involvement” of the DNI and that the raid was based on “a slop of debunked conspiracy theories.” He said he believed the raid was part of “an organized effort to misuse her national security powers to interfere in domestic politics and potentially provide a pretext for the president’s unconstitutional efforts to seize control of the upcoming elections.” That was a dire warning.

When it was his turn to question Gabbard, Warner criticized her for not providing the committee any of the required reports or briefings on foreign interference in the election. “This is the first threat assessment since 2017,” he said, “that didn’t even mention foreign interference…Are you saying there is no foreign threat to our elections in the midterms this year?”

Gabbard ducked: “This year’s annual threat assessment matches the prioritization of threats that the president has laid out.” Warner shot back: “Please answer the question, yes or no, are there foreign threats to our elections this year?” She wouldn’t say so. Nor would she explain why she hasn’t briefed Congress on this.

But Warner didn’t need an answer from her. As he pointed out, the 34-page Worldwide Threat Assessment does not include a single mention about election interference from foreign adversaries. It’s just as Gabbard said; the assessment embodies Trump’s priorities. And thwarting interference in US elections from Moscow or any other regime is not a priority for Trump.

Given Trump’s decade-long refusal to acknowledge that Russia attacked the 2016 election to help elect him and that he aided and abetted that assault by denying it happened, it’s not surprising that an intelligence community controlled by his lackeys refuses to recognize or address this potential threat. Nor is it a shocker that centers in the FBI and elsewhere in the government that were established to protect American elections from foreign attacks have been dismantled by Trump and his loyalists.

“I don’t believe this omission means the threat has disappeared,” Warner said during the hearing. “It means the intelligence community is no longer being allowed to speak honestly about it and it raises serious questions.”

For Putin’s disinformation operatives, who might now be preparing to engage in covert actions to influence the midterm elections for Trump’s benefit, Gabbard’s remarks were encouraging. Since 2016, Moscow has repeatedly mounted influence operations to influence US elections, often to boost Trump and the Republicans. Judging from Gabbard’s comments and the Worldwide Threat Assessment, this administration doesn’t have a problem with that. It has shelved programs to track and repel Moscow’s skullduggery and has even removed Russia’s information warfare from its lists of concerns. The Trump White House has practically put out the welcome mat for the cyber warriors of Moscow and other regimes. It’s hard to believe they won’t show up.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

The news load has been heavier than usual, so we’re giving all the workers at Our Land International Headquarters a short break so they can file their taxes, watch March Madness, or just breathe. See you in a week.

Another disturbing moment occurred during Gabbard’s testimony in the Senate that didn’t yield headlines. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) asked her about the absence from the Worldwide Threat Assessment of any mention of climate change, which has been cited as a national security threat in previous assessments. “There is a lot of discussion about migration [in the report],” King said. “The estimates are that climate migrants because of the changes in the climate and the atmosphere, particularly in the center equatorial area of the Earth, will range from 200 million to a billion people by 2050. Do you believe that is a national security threat that should be addressed?”

Gabbard replied: “There are a number of drivers of things like migration. It would be an extensive and voluminous annual threat assessment if we included every single one. This annual threat assessment is focused on priorities laid out by the president’s National Security Strategy.”

This was, as you might guess, bullshit. The annual threat assessments of the past have indeed included sections on climate change without causing them to be “voluminous.” And the National Security Strategy Gabbard referenced, which was released in December by the Trump White House, has one line in it regarding climate change, which is not pretty: “We reject the disastrous ‘climate change’ and ‘Net Zero’ ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the United States, and subsidize our adversaries.”

The real answer to King’s question was, Senator, the President is a climate change denier, so the intelligence community has had to drop this issue and ignore the national security threats it presents, pretending it doesn’t exist. Good luck to us all. Gabbard was savvy enough to not say that. She likes her job.

This week, Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, caused a fuss when he resigned his position in opposition to the Iran War. In his I’m-out-of-here letter, he declared, “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” He was right about the nonexistent threat, but his note had the taint of antisemitic conspiracy theory, especially given his assertion that Israel also used lies to draw the United States into “the disastrous Iraq war.” No, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were not fooled by the Israelis. They screwed that up all on their own. In his note, Kent insisted Trump had been deceived into believing Iran “posed an imminent threat”—as if to absolve the president and place all the blame on Tel Aviv.

Lost in the coverage of Kent’s self-defenestration was the fact that he has long been a right-wing extremist and conspiracy-monger. He was an election denier, and when he ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress in 2022, he sought advice from Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist and Hitler fanboy.

During his Senate confirmation hearing last year, when Kent was then serving as Gabbard’s chief of staff at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, he had a telling exchange with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), in which Kent said he believed that the FBI had a hand in orchestrating the January 6 riot and noted that, under Gabbard, the ODNI was actively investigating this:

Kelly: Do you believe that the violence on January 6 was intentionally organized or directed? 

Kent: It’s still under investigation. We’re looking into whether elements of the government could have enhanced the criminal acuity of some of the rioters that day. 

Kelly: So you’ve said on Twitter that the FBI and the intelligence community were involved in planning and directing the riot. Is that correct?”

Kent: Sounds like something I said, yeah.

Kelly asked him what evidence Kent had of a grand FBI plot, and Kent replied, “We’ve already identified that there were multiple confidential human informants ran [sic] by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies that were present in the crowd that day, directing, removing barriers, those types of things.” He said he believed the Washington field office of the FBI might have been involved in planning or encouraging the violence, and he commented, “We’re looking into it right now.”

Nearly a year later, there’s no sign that ODNI has conducted such an investigation and no evidence to back up Kent’s claim the FBI engineered the MAGA assault on Congress. This conspiracy theory about FBI informants instigating the riot—which the Trump White House has promoted—has been long debunked. Meanwhile, Kent took it upon himself to investigate whether foreign powers were involved in the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk—another far-right conspiracy theory propounded without evidence.

Kent is bonkers, and he never should have been appointed to head the NCTC. His departure is no loss. Not surprisingly, the day after he resigned, the news hit that the FBI had opened an investigation of Kent for allegedly leaking classified information. He called the king a dupe, and it looked like the king’s henchmen want to get even.

One of the judges’ favorite dumb Trump moves is that whenever an aide quits on him he disparages the person as a “bad guy” or a numbskull of some sort, acting as if he had nothing to do with their initial appointment. He pulled that classic stunt this week when Joe Kent resigned. Trump’s response: "I always thought he was weak on security. Very weak on security…It's a good thing that he's out."

Kent was head of the National Counterterrorism Center. Trump put him there. Yet Trump thought Kent was “weak on security.” If so, why didn’t Trump fire him long ago? Why did he keep a “weak” person in that crucial position? Does Trump not realize his comment was more a reflection on himself than Kent?

Responding to Kent’s assertion that Iran “posed no imminent threat” to the United States, House Speaker Mike Johnson said, "We all understood there was clearly an imminent threat...I don't know where Joe Kent is getting his information...Had the president waited, I am personally convinced that we would have mass casualties of Americans."

Kent worked for the ODNI. He probably got his information there. And it seems that nobody in the US intelligence community was saying that Iran presented an immediate danger to Americans before Trump launched the war. In fact, talks with Tehran were underway. There’s been no evidence produced indicating it was about to launch a strike on American targets. Johnson is merely doing what a disciple in a cult must do: lie.

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Penn.) served up a real boneheaded comment while advocating for the SAVE America Act, which voting rights advocates describe as a voter suppression bill. He exclaimed, "You have to have [ID] to have a child.”

Someone apparently needs to explain the birds and the bees to the senator.

It’s not every day that you see Christian ministers call for killing a politician. But that happened this week, when two Christian nationalists were discussing Texas state Sen. James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate. Obviously freaked out by Talarico, a politician who campaigns as a progressive Christian, Joshua Haymes, a Christian nationalist podcaster, exclaimed, "I pray that God kills him. Ultimately, that means killing his heart and raising him up to new life in Christ…If it would not be within God's will to do so, stop him by any means necessary." As he voiced this desire, Brooks Potteiger, who is Defense Secretary Pete Hegesth’s personal pastor, joined in, saying, with a smile, “We want him crucified…with Christ.”

Did Jesus ever call for anyone to be murdered? The judges are not biblical experts, but they don't think so. To be sure, they consulted artificial intelligence. According to Anthropic’s AI bot, Claude, “There is no passage in the Gospels in which Jesus calls for anyone to be killed. In fact, the consistent pattern in the Gospel accounts is the opposite.” The Perplexity chatbot says the same: “In the New Testament accounts, Jesus does not call for specific people to be killed or command his followers to kill anyone; instead, his explicit teaching consistently runs in the opposite direction (love enemies, reject retaliation, put away the sword).”

The judges are certain Haymes and Potteiger can find some bullshit theological twist to justify their hateful speech. But it sure won’t be based on Matthew 22:39: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Haymes and Potteiger nearly won this week, but they were edged out by tech billionaire and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. During an interview, he said he fervently eschews introspection. “Zero. As little as possible,” he remarked. Asked why, he explained,

Move forward, go. I don’t know. I found people who dwell in the past get stuck in the past, and it’s a problem at work and it’s a problem at home…You go back 400 years ago. It would have never occurred to anyone to be introspective…All of the modern conceptions around introspection and therapy and all the things that kind of result from that [are] kind of a manufacture of the 1910s, the 1920s…Great men of history didn’t sit around doing this stuff…It’s all a new construct.

Yeah, there was no introspection among humans prior to 1920. Just ask Hamlet, who was conceived by Shakespeare around 1600. We’ll do the math for Andreessen: That was about 400 years ago. With the trophy, the judges are sending Andreessen this link.

Readers had thoughts about the issue in which I noted that Democrats should start collecting string for an investigation of Trump’s Iran war to be conducted should they win the midterm elections.

Connie Veasman wrote:

A discussion was had by some of my friends regarding the government under Trump. One of the participants said that there will be lots of investigations if the Democrats get back in office. My reply to him and to you is, “Why waste the time?” There are a hundred more important things to consider, and nothing ever comes from investigations. If you don’t fine tune the laws to hold people accountable, why go through the investigation?

Here are some important issues deserve action, not just investigation: members of Congress buying and selling stock, presidential pardons being abused, a president stealing documents, who should have final say-so when the president wants to tear down the White House and build a ballroom, how to get tariff decisions under control,  the issue of dark money. Investigating these things will not change them. American people deserve more than that.

Often an investigation is the first step toward legislative action. Democrats, if they win back the House, can try to pass much needed measures. But if they don’t control both houses of Congress and cannot defeat a Trump veto, their legislation is not likely to succeed. But they will have the power to expose all the Trump wrongdoing.

Will Goff emailed:

Trump will pardon everyone. Should we be thinking about the Hague? Should we be think about non-federal ways to prosecute these people. Can we prosecute Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino in Minnesota? I’m really afraid that there will be no accountability. Should we go after Trump after he leaves office? Can the Hague prosecute Trump and Hegseth for the bombings in the Caribbean? How much should we rely on former allies to gather information?

I’m sure there will be many pardons from Trump at the end of his administration. Perhaps that makes it all the more important that there be investigations that provide the public the truth, even if you cannot lock people up.

Philip Ratcliff shared this:

I'm not confident that the Dems will convene a fact-finding committee next year, should they win the midterm election. I'm thinking of Obama's victory in 2008, and his administration's failure to hold accountable those responsible for the Great Recession. No prosecutions for the law breakers occurred. Obama didn't want to distract and alienate the public. 

That’s true. Obama wanted to move ahead with his agenda, especially when the economy was in a crisis. But if we’re looking at next year—not after a presidential election—congressional Democrats will have plenty of incentive to investigate many matters.

Charles Lund sent in a query:

It must be disgusting having to pay attention to this entire administration. Do you know if anyone in the military has taken responsibility for bombing the Iranian grade school? Any apology or sadness or regret?

I’m considering this a rhetorical question. Has Trump ever admitted error? Has Hegseth shown any humility or somberness about this war and the killing? I’ve noted how callous they have been.

Readers also seemed quite intrigued about the spy story I recently broke reporting that the Trump Justice Department is trying to spring from prison a former FBI informant who was tied to Russian intelligence and who lied to the bureau to smear Joe Biden.

Jane Monahan emailed:

Thank you for your comprehensive reporting on this guy and his history. Unfortunately, millions of people still believe the Hunter Biden story. It is hard to pull back misinformation but important to set the record straight.

That’s the point of disinformation. Even when it’s debunked, it leaves an impression on people.

Michael Jozwiak observed:

Who needs a true crime drama when all we need to do is look at the latest from the Trump gang? Unfortunately, the “zone” has been (constantly) “flooded” and it’s hard to keep track of all the narratives.

Lynn Caporale sent in a question:

In your talk with nonproliferation expert Joe Cirincione about the uranium in Iran, did he mention the risk of dirty bombs at all?

Yes, he did. I asked about that, and he said that this enriched uranium in Iran is not ideal for a dirty bomb. It’s not nearly as radioactive as other material that can be procured by bad guys. 

Mechelle Schneider wrote:

I would like to preorder your book on Trump’s war. I think the first book I read by David Corn and Michael Isikoff was Hubris, which I picked up on a Friday night after work. A book on the mess and corruption that Trump is up to would be perfect. Title? An Unstable Nitwit’s War, Greed, Grift, and Destruction: How America Was Bought Down. I am sure you will come up with a suitable title. I will be looking forward to this book.

Thanks. I do have a new book coming out later this year. Not on the Iran war but something else that's quite important. I’ll reveal all soon. 

“Did you see that?”
“What, Moxie?
“A dog walked by our house. A dog walked by our house.”
“Okay, sooo…”
“What are you going to do about that?”
“Uh, nothing. It’s just a dog.”
“Just a dog? Sometimes I don’t think I really know you.”