[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 11, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S832-S833]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Nomination of Tulsi Gabbard

  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, today I will be speaking about the 
nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence and 
my reasons for opposing her confirmation.
  First, I believe the Senate must consider with this nomination the 
examples of blatant lawlessness of the administration. At every turn, 
Donald Trump is attacking the rule of law, disregarding the 
constitutional role of Congress, and trying to purge civil servants who 
defend our country every day. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's minions are 
gaining access to some of the government's most sensitive systems and 
records. American democracy and national security are at stake. If the 
Senate is going to confirm nominees, we need to know whether they will 
stand up for democratic principles, no matter what.
  At our hearing, I asked Ms. Gabbard what she would do if Donald Trump 
tried to illegally withhold funds from the intelligence community 
inspector general. This was hardly a hypothetical question. Donald 
Trump has, in fact, sought to unilaterally cut off funding for a broad 
range of organizations despite the money having been appropriated by 
Congress. It is not just me saying this is illegal, the courts have 
ordered the administration to cut it out and resume the funding.
  But when I asked Ms. Gabbard the question, she said:

       I don't believe for a second President Trump would ask me 
     to do something that would break the law.

  Well, he is breaking the law and the country needs leaders who 
acknowledge that fact and stand up to him.
  My concerns about Ms. Gabbard are also based on her recent turn 
toward extreme partisanship. Other partisans have been confirmed to 
leadership positions and intelligence Agencies. George Herbert Walker 
Bush was the head of the Republican National Committee, and he was 
successful enough as Director of Central Intelligence that they 
literally named the headquarters after him. Party affiliation is not 
the issue.
  The problem is when partisanship distorts one's views of intelligence 
matters. Ms. Gabbard has written about a coup being perpetrated by the 
so-called deep state that includes, among others, the DNC and also the 
FBI, the CIA, and ``a whole network of rogue intelligence and law 
enforcement agents.''
  Madam President, I have spent almost a quarter century as a member of 
the Intelligence Committee seeking to bring to light and stop 
government abuses across a range of programs and activities. These 
conspiracy theories do not help the bipartisan reform movement. They 
only serve to encourage a President who wants to tear down the entire 
intelligence community and replace it with loyalists.
  So what happens next? If Ms. Gabbard is confirmed, my first order of

[[Page S833]]

business will be to hold her to the commitments she made during her 
confirmation process.
  With regard to surveillance policy, she expressed her support for a 
warrant requirement for U.S. person searches of communications 
collected under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 
Act. With section 702 reauthorization up next year, DNI support for 
reforms like these will be critical to protecting the privacy rights of 
Americans.
  Ms. Gabbard also confirmed that she has significant concerns about 
the constitutionality of several provisions of the PATRIOT Act. 
Importantly, she opposed mandated backdoors into encrypted 
communications, which threaten both Americans' privacy and national 
security. As she stated during her hearing:

       These backdoors lead down a dangerous path that can 
     undermine Americans' 4th amendment rights and civil 
     liberties.

  We are living in a time of increasingly devastating cyber breaches, 
including the Salt Typhoon compromise of our telecommunications 
infrastructure. The lesson from that hack was that surveillance 
capabilities designed for law enforcement will be targeted by foreign 
intelligence services. In other words, there is simply no way for the 
government to mandate access to Americans' encrypted communications and 
not also expose those communications to the government of China or 
other adversaries.
  Let me mention something particularly alarming last week. The press 
reported that UK officials insisted that Apple provide them a back door 
into files backed up to Apple's iCloud service. This is a development 
that threatens America's national security and Americans' privacy. That 
is even before U.S. Government officials come around once again asking 
for the very same dangerous and irresponsible accesses. That is why Ms. 
Gabbard's statement was so important and why, if she is confirmed, the 
Congress needs to hold her and the rest of America's intelligence 
Agencies to it.
  During her confirmation process, Ms. Gabbard supported restrictions 
on the collection of communications records of America's journalists. 
She endorsed the Biden administration Justice Department policy 
prohibiting this collection except in very narrow circumstances. That 
was a policy she said was ``essential to protecting press freedoms and 
maintaining the critical balance between national security and 
upholding the First Amendment.'' She also called for making sure that 
policy was actually codified.
  I asked Ms. Gabbard about the collections of communications records 
of congressional Members and staff, as was detailed in a Department of 
Justice Inspector General report released late last year. She agreed 
that this spying on Congress was a ``significant breach of the 
Constitution and separation of powers'' and, most importantly, she 
endorsed reforms to keep it from happening again.
  During this confirmation process, she also confirmed that the 
Government Accountability Office should audit the intelligence 
community to ensure that it is not targeting Americans outside of the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. She also expressed support for 
the Public Interest Declassification Board, which has the task of 
promoting transparency.
  Finally, I asked Ms. Gabbard whether intelligence Agency 
whistleblowers must have a clear path to the Senate Intelligence 
Committee and don't need permission from Agencies to talk to the 
members. She responded that the answer was ``clearly yes.'' Given 
Donald Trump's ongoing attacks on public servants defending the rule of 
law, that protection of whistleblowers that we discussed may be one of 
the most important principles of all.
  Let me wrap up this way, Madam President. In just 3 short weeks since 
his inauguration, here is the checks and balances scoreboard on 
President Trump: He has illegally fired inspectors general; he has 
purged the three Democratic members of the independent Privacy and 
Civil Liberties Oversight Board, not only removing the most pro-privacy 
members, but leaving the board without enough members to function; he 
has appointed or nominated people to carry out political retribution, 
including a nominee to be FBI Director who comes with his own published 
enemies list. At the same time, Donald Trump has demonstrated thorough 
contempt for the security of Americans' private information by granting 
Elon Musk's people unsupervised access to the country's most sensitive 
security systems and databases.
  So what will happen when he attempts to steamroll oversight and the 
rule of law and put the privacy and constitutional rights of all 
Americans at risk and on the line? If she is confirmed, it will be up 
to Ms. Gabbard to stand up to him and stick to the principles and 
commitments that she has expressed and answered in response to my 
questions. It will be our responsibility to ensure that she does just 
that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.