The Senate voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence on Wednesday, elevating a former lawmaker with controversial foreign policy views to the head of the country’s spy agencies.
Gabbard was confirmed on a 52-48 vote. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was the only Republican to oppose Gabbard’s confirmation.
A former Democratic congresswoman turned Republican, Gabbard was initially considered a long shot for DNI given her history of going against U.S. intelligence consensus and her warm views on American adversaries like Russian President Vladimir Putin and now-deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
During her confirmation before the Senate Intelligence Committee in late January, Gabbard was grilled on her foreign policy views and her professed change of heart about a surveillance program she once tried to repeal as a congresswoman. She also repeatedly declined to say if she believed Edward Snowden, a former government contractor who leaked highly classified documents, was a “traitor.”
Several Republicans appeared to remain on the fence about their support for her afterward. But she won two crucial GOP votes on the committee under the wire, and the panel voted along party lines to advance her nomination to the full Senate.
Ahead of Gabbard's confirmation vote, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat and former CIA analyst, said in a Senate floor speech on Tuesday that Gabbard “has shown a repeated preference for our adversaries over the intelligence community in the United States of America.”
McConnell ultimately remained the lone Republican to publicly voice his concern about Gabbard’s past stances. After the confirmation vote on Wednesday, he said in a statement that Gabbard has “a history of alarming lapses in judgment” but added that he hopes “she rises to the immense responsibilities of her office.”
Gabbard will assume the role of director of national intelligence without having any significant experience in the field. She will oversee 18 intelligence agencies with a budget of about $100 billion and advise Trump on intelligence matters.