As an unconventional pick to lead the nation’s intelligence service, Tulsi Gabbard is expected to face tough questions about her past comments on Syria, Russia, foreign surveillance and President Donald Trump when she goes before lawmakers at her confirmation hearing Thursday. The former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii is Trump’s nominee to be the next director of national intelligence, a job created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that oversees and coordinates the work of more than a dozen intelligence agencies. Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard who served two tours in the Middle East, has alarmed some intelligence and national security officials in the U.S. and elsewhere with comments sympathetic to Russia and criticism of a critical surveillance program. Here’s a look at Gabbard in her own words: On Syria and visits with Assad Gabbard traveled to Syria in 2017 to meet with then-President Bashar Assad, a visit that angered lawmakers from both parties who said she helped legitimize an accused war criminal and key ally of Russia and Iran. Gabbard has defended the trip and her belief that meeting with adversaries can result in dialogue and peace. Assad fled Syria in December after being ousted following his country’s brutal civil war. “When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so because I felt that it’s important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace,” Gabbard told CNN at the time. She later said she was “skeptical” that Assad’s regime used banned chemical weapons to strike his own people, despite that being the repeated conclusion of U.S. authorities and independent analysts. “I have not seen that independent investigation occur and that proof presented showing exactly what happened and there are a number of theories of exactly what happened that day,” Gabbard said of Assad’s attack during a CNN appearance in 2017. In a 2019 interview on MSNBC, she said, “Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.” Following Assad’s ouster, Gabbard has echoed Trump, who has said Assad fell because Russia pulled its support during its war in Ukraine, a conflict Trump has said he hopes to resolve. “I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has made,” she told reporters in December. “My own views and experiences have been shaped by my multiple deployments and seeing firsthand the cost of war.” Trump, she said, “is fully committed as he has said over and over to bringing about an end to wars, demonstrating peace through strength.” On Russia and Ukraine Gabbard has repeated Russia’s arguments about its invasion of Ukraine, suggesting Moscow had justification to send troops into the neighboring country. She also endorsed Russian claims that the U.S. and Ukraine were involved in dangerous biological research before the war. She has criticized the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “corrupt autocracy” and has expressed sympathy for Russia’s position, given Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, the Western military alliance. “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns,” she posted on Twitter at the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022. Soon after the war […]