Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, mentioned he was “surprised” that director of nationwide intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard refused to name former NSA contractor Edward Snowden a “traitor” after being repeatedly pressed on the query at a Thursday listening to.
“I was surprised because that doesn’t seem like a hard question on that. It wasn’t intended to be a trick question by any means,” Lankford mentioned.
The Oklahoma senator mentioned it ought to have been an “easy question” to say it’s “universally accepted when you steal a million pages of top-secret documents and you hand it to the Russians, that’s a traitorous act.”
Gabbard declined in response to no less than 4 inquiries to name Snowden a “traitor.”
She was requested twice concerning the matter by Lankford and twice by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).
When pressed by Lankford, Gabbard answered that her “heart” is with “my commitment to our Constitution and our nation’s security.”
Gabbard mentioned she’s dedicated if confirmed to creating certain there’s not one other Snowden-type leak by taking 4 actions: Ensuring “there are no unconstitutional [surveillance] programs;” limiting access to secrets through security clearance reform; doing more to educate intelligence personnel about “legal whistleblower challenges;” and opening a direct line to her “should anyone have concerns.”
Lankford requested once more whether or not Snowden was a traitor “at the time when he took America’s secrets, released them in public and then ran to China and became a Russian citizen.”
Gabbard sidestepped the query.
“Senator, I’m focused on the future and how we can prevent something like this from happening again,” she mentioned.
