Shazaam, WSJ Editorial Board Gives Tulsi Gabbard the Kiss Of Death

Turbulent times within the new Trump administration. RFK, Jr.’s Senate hearing is past going to the dogs, it’s gone to the wolves. Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel also have Senate hearings in the next few days and today none other than the bastion of conservative editorialism, the Wall Street Journal, decided that it was time to throw a monkey wrench into Gabbard’s nomination. By all means. I am 100% for it. Here’s what their editorial board has to say:

Voters want disruption in Washington, but it’d be something else entirely for the Senate to confirm a director of national intelligence who has a record of defending those who subvert U.S. interests. When former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard testifies Thursday, will Republicans pose questions that serve the public interest, or go along to get along with President Trump?

Sen. Tom Cotton, the head of the Intelligence Committee, recently said he hopes nobody questions Ms. Gabbard’s patriotism. We aren’t. The issue is what she believes and what she does, especially on U.S. intelligence. Her history isn’t encouraging. In 2020 she introduced a House resolution, alongside then Rep. Matt Gaetz, calling for the feds to drop charges against Edward Snowden.

“The National Security Agency’s bulk collection telephone records program was illegal and unconstitutional,” the resolution argued. “Edward Snowden’s disclosure of this program to journalists was in the public interest.” Oh, his disclosure of one NSA program to some trusted journalists? Is that all Ms. Gabbard believes Mr. Snowden did?

The reality is that Mr. Snowden betrayed his oath by pilfering a massive cache of U.S. secrets, fleeing to Russia, and subsequently taking citizenship there.

“The vast majority of the documents he stole have nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests,” a House Intelligence Committee review said in 2016. “They instead pertain to military, defense and intelligence programs of great interest to America’s adversaries.” Many of the details are classified, though, and the report was heavily redacted.

Yet the damage was real. “Russia and China have cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries,” the U.K.’s Sunday Times reported in 2015. The U.K. is part of the Five Eyes alliance of nations that share intelligence with the U.S. It’s hard to square that report with the euphemistic description in Ms. Gabbard’s House resolution.

Whew, doggies! The editorial then goes on to show what a hypocrite Tom Cotton is and then they praise a Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. What wonders are going to come out of the Journal yet? I am in awe.

“Edward Snowden was an egotistical serial liar and traitor whose unauthorized disclosures of classified information have jeopardized the safety of Americans and allies around the world,” he [Tom Cotton] said. “Snowden’s close and continual contact with Russian intelligence services speak volumes. He deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his life.”

How is Cotton going to vote to confirm Gabbard after having gone on record with that level of a denunciation of Snowden? I don’t doubt for a minute that he will do it, I just want to see what that looks like.

We agree with the late New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who led a commission on government secrets in the 1990s, that overclassification is a problem. “The best way to ensure that secrecy is respected, and that the most important secrets remain secret, is for secrecy to be returned to its limited but necessary role,” that report said. “Secrets can be protected more effectively if secrecy is reduced overall.”

The Journal bottom lines its argument about Gabbard thusly: “No, the question isn’t Ms. Gabbard’s patriotism. It’s judgment, and what message it would send friends and foes to confirm a director of national intelligence who doesn’t really seem to believe in protecting national intelligence.”

Gabbard clearly has no judgment. It shows in her past history of siding with not only Snowden but other unsavory characters as well. She does not deserve the position and it will compromise America substantially if she gets the position.

I don’t know if this one editorial will sway anybody but I can guarantee you this article is going around the Senate as we speak and people are unnerved and wondering how to handle it. This is Big Money talking in the background. This, for all we know, was written at the direction of Rupert Murdoch. Certainly it addresses the ideas of his billionaire compatriots. That is a voice that usually gets heard. If I was Gabbard, I might be sweating a bit right now. And if I was a Republican senator, sweat would be pouring off me. I think that was the intended message.