Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said that former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Trump’s pick for national intelligence director, is “likely a Russian asset.”
“There’s no question I consider her someone who is likely a Russian asset,” Wasserman Schultz said on MSNBC on Friday.
The Hill has contacted Gabbard’s press team for comment.
Wasserman Schultz’s comment comes as Trump has faced some pushback over some of his cabinet picks, including his nod toward Gabbard as director of national intelligence.
The role is a major shift for the former Democrat who has previously been accused of peddling Russian narratives. Gabbard has expressed beliefs that oppose the conclusions from U.S. intelligence, particularly when it comes to Russia and Ukraine.
Gabbard has shared content suggesting that the U.S. was involved in Ukraine developing biological weapons. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said at the time that she was “parroting Russian propaganda” and that her “treasonous lies may well cost lives.”
In 2022, she also knocked the Biden administration for failing to address Russian concerns amid its invasion of Ukraine.
“This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border,” she wrote on X at the time.
In a 2019 interview, Hillary Clinton mentioned Russian media support in relation to Gabbard, labeling the former congresswoman a “favorite of the Russians.”
Gabbard in 2017 met with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who was accused of using chemical weapons on his own citizens during the country’s civil war. The meeting sparked anger among her colleagues in Congress.
During her 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, Gabbard alleged that Assad was not an enemy of the United States and declined to say he was a war criminal.
