Senate Confirms Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, 52-48
The U.S. Senate, meeting at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence on February 12, 2025, by a vote of 52 to 48. All 52 votes in favor came from Republican senators. Of the 48 votes against, 47 came from Democratic senators and one from Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, the only Republican to vote no. The nomination was numbered PN11-16 in the Senate.
Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, previously served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii and ran for president in 2020. She will lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees and coordinates the 18 agencies of the intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. In a February 12, 2025, news release, the office said Gabbard is the eighth Senate-confirmed Director of National Intelligence and the first female combat veteran to hold the post.
The nomination had cleared the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 4, when the committee voted 9 to 8 to report it favorably to the full Senate, a step welcomed in a statement by the committee's chairman, Tom Cotton. On February 10, the Senate voted 52 to 46 to end debate, clearing the way for the final confirmation vote.
At her January 30 confirmation hearing, senators of both parties questioned Gabbard about her past statements on National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden; about her changed position on the Section 702 surveillance authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — as a House member she had introduced legislation to repeal it; and about her 2017 trip to Syria, where she met then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and expressed skepticism about U.S. assessments that his government had used chemical weapons. At the hearing, Gabbard said "Edward Snowden broke the law" and that, if confirmed, her responsibility would be to protect the nation's secrets.
Hours after the confirmation vote, Gabbard was sworn in on the afternoon of February 12 in the Oval Office of the White House, with Attorney General Pam Bondi administering the oath and President Donald Trump in attendance. In a statement after taking office, Gabbard said she was honored and grateful to Trump for the opportunity to serve, and that accurate, unbiased, and timely intelligence is critical to the decisions of the president, Congress, and the military.
(Source: U.S. Senate)
Source: U.S. Senate
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：2025年2月12日，Tulsi Gabbard 在位于华盛顿特区的白宫宣誓就任国家情报总监当日。（白宫官方照片，Molly Riley 摄，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons） / Photo: Tulsi Gabbard at the White House in Washington, D.C., on February 12, 2025, the day she was sworn in as Director of National Intelligence. (Official White House photo by Molly Riley, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
