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Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said this week that while some members of Donald Trump's new Cabinet may have different views on various policy issues than the Canadian government, this would not prevent a “respectful and effective relationship between the two countries.”
But the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence (DNI) in Trump's second US 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, said in an interview with CBC News that Canada should be concerned as “we've decided to really do a lot of our intelligence gathering.” to outsource. from the United States.”
When Ukraine was first attacked by Russia in February 2022, Gabbard said it marked the Joe Biden administration's failure to recognize “Russia's legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine's membership in NATO.”
She said weeks later that it was an “undeniable fact” that there were several US-funded bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine that could “release and spread deadly pathogens.”
Investigative journalist Justin Ling exposes how a QAnon conspiracy theory about US-funded 'biolabs' in Ukraine turned into mainstream disinformation, and what it might suggest about Russia's own dangerous ambitions.
The first claim about the reasons for Russian aggression differs from the position of the current US administration and its Western allies, which have provided military aid to Ukraine, while the second reflects Gabbard's sensitivity, in Carvin's words, to ' straight from nowhere'. conspiracy theories on the internet.”
Elsewhere in the world, Gabbard has embraced views that have ranged from the merely contrarian — she said Trump's meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was a positive development — to out of left field, criticizing Japan's desire to evolution from strictly defensive military capabilities was questioned. , “considering Japanese aggression in the Pacific” in World War II.
In January 2017, Gabbard freelanced as a Democratic member of Congress, where he met Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In April that year, Gabbard said she was “skeptical” that Assad had launched a chemical weapons attack on Syrians, even as the first Trump administration expressed a “very high level of confidence,” which 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 such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP, could find themselves in a precarious position if Gabbard plays such a crucial role. Canada “receives more from the Five Eyes alliance than it sends to that alliance,” a report on foreign interference The group, which also includes the US, Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand, was declared last year on behalf of the government.
'I don't think this will be the end of the period [Canada-U.S.] relationship, I don't think this will be the end of the Five Eyes,” Carvin said. 'Will there be much more attention paid to what is passed on and how it is shared, and under what circumstances? “I have no doubt that this is likely to be the case if she is confirmed.”
Bolton criticizes Gabbard's choice
While Democrats are unsurprisingly alarmed by her nomination, Senator Elizabeth Warren said on CNN on Thursday that Gabbard is “so clearly in trouble.” [Vladimir] Putin's pocket” – some conservatives are also warning against this choice, including former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger and former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton.
“With his announcement that Tulsi Gabbard will become director of national intelligence, he is sending a message that we have gone crazy when it comes to intelligence gathering,” Bolton told NewsNation on Wednesday about Trump's pick.
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 Russian propaganda she has embraced.”
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 that he will try to avoid confirmation hearings altogether to avoid some of his nominees are pushed back.
As DNI, Gabbard would oversee intelligence collected by 18 agencies. That list includes the Central Intelligence Agency and various branches of the military, as well as intelligence from the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Energy.
The position was created following a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission regarding gaps in intelligence collection and sharing leading up to the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in the September 11, 2001, aircraft attacks on U.S. soil.
Sharing, leaking are concerns
Trump has railed against the “deep state” and accused US intelligence services of trying to undermine his first administration and his political campaigns.
His 2016 presidential campaign was willing to hear potentially damaging information about his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, from Russian sources, although later investigations found that the campaign had not conspired with Russia. Two years later, standing alongside Putin at a summit in Finland, Trump famously dithered over whether he believed U.S. intelligence agencies or the Russian leader regarding the Kremlin's accusations of meddling in the 2016 election.
Then, Trump's first of two impeachments between 2019 and 2021 centered around a phone call in which he appeared to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to participate in a dirt-digging exercise on Biden — an endeavor led by the 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 previous comments about Russia “will set alarm bells ringing around the world.” Intelligence officials could be “more selective in the level of detail they choose to relay,” including in how they protect sources and word information, Ingram said.
Carvin of Carleton University said another concern is the risk that “intelligence could leak or sources and methods could be shared in a way that is counterproductive.”
John Ratcliffe, picked by Trump this week to head the CIA, has already been accused by Democrats of doing just that, following allegations that he politicized, unverifiable intelligence just days before the 2020 elections when he served as DNI. Even Mark Esper, Trump's former defense secretary, questioned Ratcliffe's priorities in one particular incident that 'threatened to expose highly sensitive sources and methods', all at Trump's behest.
As CIA director, Ratcliffe would report to Gabbard.
Bitter departure from the Democratic Party
Gabbard becoming DNI would be fitting in one respect, as are they career is filled with twists and turns and changing positionsalso on domestic issues such as access to abortion.
She served four terms as a Democratic House member and was hailed upon her arrival as a rare commodity: a Hindu from Hawaii who was then a rare female war veteran for the party in Congress.
Gabbard supported progressive candidate Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries, but four years later she backed Biden, a longtime figure of the party establishment.
Two years later she became independent and released an album A rant of 87 words and one sentence which characterized the Democrats as being “now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers, driven by cowardly wokeness.”
In August, she endorsed Trump over Kamala Harris, and this week she was among a number of politicians and officials rewarded by the president-elect for their loyalty.
