Sen. Mark Kelly reiterated on Sunday his continuing concern about the judgment of Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, saying she had a “predilection for misinformation.”
In an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Kelly, D-Ariz., said he had met with Gabbard, but she didn’t tell him her controversial 2017 meeting with now-deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was unplanned.
Sen. Shelley Capito Moore, R-W.Va., told Fox News that Gabbard told her in their private meeting that she only intended to visit Lebanon and “ended up in Syria,” CBS’ Margaret Brennan said as she interviewed Kelly. “Is that a credible answer?”
“We talked about the trip to Syria. She didn’t tell me that part,” Kelly replied. “I think it’s kind of unusual that you wind up in one place that wasn’t part of a plan.
“But what concerns me more especially about that trip is it was common knowledge that Assad was gassing the civilian population using chemical weapons … multiple times.”
Gabbard, he said, made an effort to downplay the number of gassing incidents and she used experts “that were not credible to try to prove that he was not using chemical weapons” in two instances.
Kelly called it a troubling use of “political capital.”
Kelly is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that will hold a confirmation hearing for Gabbard and his worries reflect broader troubles with her nomination by Democrats.
Gabbard is a former four-term Democratic member of the House of Representatives from Hawaii and ran as arguably the most conservative candidate for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination.
She has yet to submit vetting documents to the Senate Ethics Committee.
Kelly also is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee that on Tuesday will question another controversial nomination, Pete Hegseth, the Fox News broadcaster who is the nominee for secretary of Defense.
Kelly called for the committee to share an FBI background report on Hegseth with all its members, not just the top Republican and Democrat because of extensive questions about Hegseth’s suitability.
Hegseth has faced allegations of sexual assault, excessive drinking and financial mismanagement in two veterans-related organizations.
Kelly said he still has not met with Hegseth, whom Trump nominated shortly after his November reelection.
“There is not a job that is more serious and more critical to our national security than secretary of Defense,” Kelly said. “We need a qualified individual in that job, and he just does not seem to have the qualifications. And then on top of that, you look at his personal conduct, especially when he was managing Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans of America. These two organizations were financially mismanaged.”
Kelly also said he expects the social media platform TikTok to be shut down next week after the Supreme Court seemed unlikely to side with it and after Congress has banned its continued operation unless it sheds its Chinese ownership.
“I know this is controversial,” Kelly said. “I know there are folks out there that earn a living on TikTok, but it has a national security risk to it.”
That includes access to Americans’ data, he said, and the “ability to manipulate the population of the United States, especially in a time of conflict.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tulsi Gabbard still hasn’t impressed Sen. Mark Kelly