President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he will nominate Tulsi Gabbard, a former House of Representatives Democrat who became a prominent Trump supporter, as director of national intelligence.
“For more than two decades, Tulsi has fought for our country and the freedoms of all Americans,” Trump said in a statement. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that defined her illustrious career to our intelligence community, standing up for our constitutional rights and securing peace through strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!”
In her own statement Wednesday, Gabbard said she was grateful for the opportunity to “defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people” as a member of Trump’s Cabinet.
“I’m looking forward to getting to work,” she added.
Gabbard announced shortly before the 2022 midterm elections that she was leaving the Democratic Party, which she accused in a video on X of “actively working to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.”
In August, she endorsed Trump, began working as co-chair of his transition team and helped him prepare for his only debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. Last month, she formally announced she would join the Republican Party.
Gabbard ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race and ended her campaign in March 2020 to endorse Joe Biden. She also served as a member of the House of Representatives from 2013 to 2021 and served as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016.
She is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and previously deployed to the Middle East and Africa.
If confirmed, Gabbard will be the first person of color to become director of national intelligence, a position created by President George W. Bush.
Gabbard has been widely criticized for her 2017 meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been accused of human rights abuses and war crimes. She defended the meeting, telling MSNBC at the time: “We should be willing to meet with anyone we need to if there is a possibility and a chance that that can help us take steps forward toward peace.”
In 2019, Gabbard was one of the few Democrats in the House of Representatives who did not vote for Trump’s first impeachment on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Gabbard has also criticized the January 6 House of Representatives committee, arguing that the panel’s first public hearing in June 2022 on its investigation into the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol was aimed at achieving ‘political interests’.
“They don’t have clear priorities. Much of this has been politicized. It has been sensationalized with very specific objectives that have nothing to do with upholding the Constitution,” Gabbard said in an interview on Fox News in 2022.
After a jury in New York found Trump guilty of 34 crimes in his hush-money trial this year, Gabbard said in video comments posted online that the Biden-Harris administration was responsible for the “personal political persecution of Donald Trump.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
