Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the highest Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, mentioned late Thursday he wouldn’t help Tulsi Gabbard for Director of Nationwide Intelligence after she refused to sentence NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
Talking with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, Warner expressed concern that Gabbard throughout her Thursday listening to repeatedly refused to label Snowden a traitor after he leaked hundreds of categorised paperwork and fled to Russia.
“We get about half our intelligence from our allies around the world. There’s no requirement that they share that with us. They share that on trust. If this individual can’t say Edward Snowden, who shared our secrets and other secrets, is a traitor, will these other countries, our Five Eye partners, partners around the world, will Israel’s Mossad share that information with us on an ongoing basis? That will make us weaker if they don’t share that,” Warner mentioned, referencing the Israeli intelligence unit and the intelligence alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the U.S.
“If you’re not willing to stand up for them, if you’re not willing to send out a signal, this role of director of national intelligence, you’ve got 18 agencies, $100 billion, if you’re not willing to call out Edward Snowden as a traitor, you shouldn’t have that job.”
Warner mentioned he was “happy to tell you and your audience tonight that I will definitely be voting against Ms. Gabbard.”
Her refusal was additionally considered as a fumble by these within the GOP, casting doubt on whether or not her nomination will advance.
Privately, Gabbard had sought to assuage senators about her views on Snowden.
However a key second throughout Gabbard’s listening to got here when Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) requested whether or not she views Snowden as a “traitor,” advising her that members of the Intelligence panel would really feel lots higher about her nomination if she would accomplish that.
As an alternative, Gabbard sidestepped two questions on whether or not Snowden betrayed the nation, telling lawmakers she is “focused on the future and how we can prevent something like this from happening again,” referring to Snowden’s theft of secret paperwork.
At one other level within the listening to, Gabbard mentioned Snowden “broke the law,” a phrase she repeated all through Thursday’s listening to, however then rapidly pivoted to speak about “my focus on the future.”
Lankford mentioned it ought to have been an “easy question” to say it’s “universally accepted when you steal a million pages of top-secret documents and you hand it to the Russians, that’s a traitorous act.”
