The Tulsi Gabbard hearing

A rare Washington demonstration of courage

I spent Thursday morning at the Dirksen Building, for Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination hearing in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI—pronounced like a feminine boy, “sissy”). The tension in the room was….heavy.

As anyone who read or watched the news that evening knows, the hearing was confrontational. Gabbard took tough questions on Russia and the Ukraine War, on section 702 surveillance, on her 2017 Syria trip in which she meet Bashar al Assad, even on her views on China and East Asia. But the real fireworks were all about her position on the Edward Snowden affair.

It has been almost a dozen years now, so a brief refresher may be in order for many. To do the Cliff’s Notes version, Edward Snowden was an NSA contractor in Hawaii. In 2013, in response to what he perceived to be abuses against the privacy of US citizens carried out as the intelligence community greatly expanded its scope and powers in the post 9/11 era, he fled to first Hong Kong and then Russia with over a million classified documents in his possession.¹ These documents included descriptions of an out-of-control surveillance system of American citizens, but were by no means limited to these.² It is indisputable that secrets totally unrelated to US citizens were revealed by Snowden, most famously that the United States was spying on the leadership of its European allies, including (then-)German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Public opinion has been deeply divided then and since over whether Snowden was a traitor for exposing intelligence secrets—sources and methods, in the vernacular—or a folk hero for his (unconventional method of) whistleblowing on systematic violation of the Constitutional rights of US citizens against unwarranted search and seizure of their electronic communications, absent judicial warrants.

Gabbard was asked repeatedly, by numerous Senators, Republicans and Democrats, whether she considered Edward Snowden to be a traitor. Gabbard declined, on multiple occasions, to directly answer the question, instead repeating her mantra that “Edward Snowden broke the law” and assuring the committee that both as a matter of policy and procedure, there would be no similar incidents on her watch, if confirmed. But she obviously considered the violations of the 4th Amendment rights of American citizens to be the critical issue at hand.

The question was particularly relevant for Gabbard as she had co-sponsored a bill in 2020 with Republican representative (and short-lived nominee for Attorney General) Matt Gaetz directing the federal government to drop all charges against Snowden.³ This would have given Snowden a de facto pardon, if not necessarily a formal one.

While Gabbard walked back advocacy of a pardon, on the question of treason, she refused to budge.

My feelings on Snowden are mixed, but I probably come down on the opposite side of the question than does Tulsi Gabbard. While I would acknowledge mitigating circumstances in the abuses Snowden observed, fleeing your country with documents that will do harm to your nation’s national security sure sounds like treason to me.

But—and this is to me the important point—Tulsi Gabbard demonstrated that on deeply held opinions, she will not back down for political reasons. Not even to protect her own confirmation.

We have words for this. “Integrity” and “character” are two commonly used (though “stubborn” is occasionally deployed when we disapprove of it).

Having digested this hearing for a few days now, this is the core point to which I repeatedly return. Ms. Gabbard knew EXACTLY what the Senators sitting on the committee—who had to approve her nomination—wanted to hear when they asked that question (again and again). I am metaphysically confident that there was no question in her mind that she was expected to recant her earlier position, say she had arrived at a more nuanced understanding, and label Snowden as a traitor.

She chose not to.

She is a nominee who will not lie to a congressional committee to please them—even to save her skin.

Isn’t this precisely what we should want in a senior leader of the executive branch? Of a cabinet-level official? Someone who tells what they believe to be the truth—right or wrong—regardless of what we think of it? Shouldn’t the committee walk away with considerable confidence that Tulsi would not hesitate to bring them news that they do not want to hear…but need to? And that she will foster a culture of intellectual honesty in the organization she leads?

This will be the core question facing the Senate as they consider her nomination. Questions of competence can easily be pushed aside. I can’t imagine anyone claiming that any other nominee with eight years on the House Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees doesn’t have sufficient national security and international experience, let alone the military service on top of that. Further, for two decades, she has maintained various degrees of clearance, including Top Secret, even after leaving the Congress.

The more I think about it, the more I think that Tulsi Gabbard—though I disagree with her on the merits of the Snowden question—demonstrated that she is a leader of character and integrity. She has demonstrated it in a clear and public manner, at personal risk.

This is exactly what we need and so desperately want. Confirm her.

1. Whether Russia was Snowden’s intended final destination, or whether he planned to merely transit to South America and was trapped there by the cancellation of his passport is a matter of dispute.

2. The passage of the USA Freedom Act in 2015 is widely seen as a corrective to these exposed abuses.

3. Then-Representative Gabbard was elected as a member of the Democrat party to Congress, so it was a bipartisan bill.