Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said this week that while some members of the incoming Donald Trump cabinet may have different views on various policy issues than the Canadian government, it wouldn’t prevent a “respectful and effective relationship between the two countries.”
But the elevation of Tulsi Gabbard to director of national intelligence (DNI) in Trump’s second U.S. administration could cause “a lot of headaches” for Western allies, according to at least one analyst.
Stephanie Carvin, an associate professor of international relations at Carleton University in Ottawa who previously worked as a national security analyst, in an interview with CBC News, said Canada should be concerned given “we’ve decided to really outsource a lot of our intelligence gathering from the United States.”
When Ukraine first came under attack from Russia in February 2022, Gabbard said it marked the Joe Biden administration’s failure to acknowledge “Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO.”
She then said weeks later that it was an “undeniable fact” that there were several U.S.-funded bioweapons labs in Ukraine that could “release and spread deadly pathogens.”
Investigative reporter Justin Ling exposes how a QAnon conspiracy theory about U.S.-funded ‘biolabs’ in Ukraine morphed into mainstream disinformation, and what that could suggest about Russia’s own dangerous ambitions.
The first contention as to the reasons for Russia’s aggression deviates from the view of the current U.S. administration and its Western allies, who have provided military aid to Ukraine, while the second reflects Gabbard’s susceptibility, in Carvin’s words, to “straight-from-the-internet conspiracy theories.”
Elsewhere in the world, Gabbard has espoused opinions that have ranged from merely contrarian — she said that Trump meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was a positive development — to out of left field, questioning Japan’s desire to evolve from strictly defensive military capabilities, “given Japan’s aggression in the Pacific” in the Second World War.
- This Sunday, CBC Radio’s Cross Country Checkup‘s ask me anything is on Trump’s cabinet picks and the state of U.S. democracy. Leave your questions for our expert here.
In January 2017, Gabbard freelanced while a Democratic member of Congress, meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In April of that year, Gabbard said she was “skeptical” Assad had launched a chemical weapons attack on Syrians, even as the first Trump administration expressed a “very high level of confidence” that was the case.
“Assad is not the enemy of the United States, because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,” Gabbard told MSNBC nearly two years later as she plotted a long-shot presidential bid.
Canada, and agencies including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP, could be in a precarious position with Gabbard in such a critical role. Canada “receives more from the Five Eyes alliance than it sends to that alliance,” a report on foreign interference commissioned by the government stated last year of the group that also includes the U.S., Australia, Britain and New Zealand.
“I don’t think it’s going to be the end of the [Canada-U.S.] relationship, I don’t think it’s going to be the end of the Five Eyes,” Carvin said. “Will there be a lot more consideration of what is passed on and how it is shared, and under what circumstances? I have no doubt that will probably be the case if she is confirmed.”
Bolton slams Gabbard choice
While Democrats are unsurprisingly alarmed by her nomination — Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Thursday on CNN that Gabbard “has so clearly been in [Vladimir] Putin’s pocket” — some conservatives are also cautioning against the pick, including former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger and onetime Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton.
“With his announcement of Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, he’s sending a signal that we’ve lost our mind when it comes to collecting intelligence,” Bolton told NewsNation on Wednesday of Trump’s choice.
Donald Trump continues to appoint close supporters to key cabinet posts. His latest appointments named Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. How will they shape Trump’s second administration? Power & Politics speaks to a reporter in Washington.
Bolton said Gabbard should get a thorough FBI vet beforehand “given the Russia propaganda that she has espoused.”
Gabbard needs the green light from just 50 Republican senators to take on the DNI job, even as Trump’s recent social media post about recess appointments has some Democrats concerned he’ll try to evade confirmation hearings altogether to avoid pushback on some of his nominees.
As DNI, Gabbard would oversee intelligence gathered by 18 agencies. That list includes the Central Intelligence Agency and various branches of the military, but also intelligence gleaned from the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Energy.
The position was created after a 9/11 Commission recommendation related to gaps in intelligence gathering and sharing in the run-up to nearly 3,000 people being killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, plane attacks on U.S. soil.
Sharing, leaks are concerns
Trump has railed against the “deep state” and blamed U.S. intelligence agencies of seeking to undermine his first administration, as well as his political campaigns.
His campaign for president in 2016 was willing to hear potentially damaging information on his Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton, from Russian sources, though subsequent investigations found the campaign hadn’t conspired with Russia. Two years later, Trump famously equivocated while beside Putin at a Finland summit over whether he believed U.S. intelligence agencies or the Russian leader with respect to allegations of Kremlin interference in the 2016 election.
Then, Trump’s first of two impeachments between 2019 and 2021 centred around a phone call in which he appeared to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to co-operate with an exercise to dig up dirt on Biden — an undertaking that was being spearheaded by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
While her fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump, Gabbard voted “present,” the only member to do so.
Philip Ingram, a former intelligence officer in the British military, told Reuters this week that Gabbard’s past comments about Russia “will set alarm bells ringing around the world.” Intelligence officials could be “more selective in the level of detail they are willing to pass on,” including in how they protect sources and phrase information, Ingram said.
Carleton University’s Carvin said another concern is the risk that “intelligence could be leaked or that sources and methods could be shared in a way that was counterproductive.”
John Ratcliffe, picked by Trump this week to head the CIA, has already been accused by Democrats of doing just that, over allegations he politicized unverifiable intelligence just days before the 2020 election when serving as DNI. Even Mark Esper, Trump’s former defence secretary, questioned the priorities of Ratcliffe in one particular incident that “risked exposing very sensitive sources and methods,” all at the apparent behest of Trump.
As CIA director, Ratcliffe would report to Gabbard.
Bitter departure from Democratic Party
Gabbard becoming DNI would be fitting in one way, as her career has been filled with turns and shifting positions, including on domestic issues like abortion access.
She served four terms as a Democratic House member and was hailed upon her arrival as a rare commodity — a Hindu from Hawaii who at the time was a rare female war veteran for the party in Congress.
Gabbard endorsed progressive candidate Bernie Sanders over longtime party establishment figure Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries, but four years later she endorsed Biden, a longtime party establishment figure.
Two years later, she went independent, releasing an 87-word, single-sentence diatribe that characterized the Democrats as being “now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”
She endorsed Trump over Kamala Harris in August, and this week was among a number of politicians and officials rewarded for their loyalty by the president-elect.
