Monday, 3 February 2025

Pete Hegseth made it, will Tulsi Gabbard?

Tomorrow is Tulsi Gabbard's moment of truth. Will she get confirmation for her nominated post of director of national intelligence in the Trump administration? She is a very controversial choice. She has some odd views that needed explaining when she appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee but she seemed reluctant to give answers that either made sense or were acceptable to the senators. For example, if she is to be in overall overseeing charge of America's 18, yes 18, intelligence services, why did she find it so difficult to agree with the senators that Edward Snowden who leaked thousands and thousands of CIA and NSA (National Security Agency) secrets to the media, and thus to the Russians and Chinese etc, had betrayed his country and was, therefore, guilty of treason and treachery? Edward Snowden, whistleblower or traitor, has been the big question ever since he was exposed as the former CIA and NSA contractor who stole all those secrets. But you would have thought that the person chosen by Trump to head up the whole intelligence apparatus should have a pretty clear conviction that Snowden betrayed his former employers and his country. Will that be enough of a negative factor for the Senate to reject her nomination? Probably not. Pete Hegseth, ex-Fox News presenter, managed with a lot of arm-twisting to get confirmed as defence secretary, and hasn't he been busy since taking over the Pentagon, sending troops to the border, scrapping diversity, bombing terrorists in Somalia? So I guess Tulsi Gabbard will probably swing it as well and soon will have the country's biggest intelligence secrets in her in-tray.

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