Gabbard's Confirmation Hearing: Snowden Blasts Senators For Obsessing Over Him

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After Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearing for Director of National Intelligence concluded, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden responded.

“The Senate Intel Committee spent nearly the entirety of its session today furiously demanding that DNI nominee Gabbard condemn me personally, a position now opposed by something like 94% of Americans. Courts have been ruling for ten years that NSA broke the law, guys. Move on.”

Indeed, during the open portion of Gabbard’s confirmation hearing, both Republican and Democratic senators spent little time asking policy questions. They asked few questions about what Gabbard would do in her role overseeing much of the United States’ vast intelligence-industrial complex. They primarily fixated on Gabbard’s past support for Snowden.

“Until you were nominated to be the DNI, you consistently praised the actions of Edward Snowden—somebody I believe jeopardized the security of our nation and then to flaunt that fled to Russia,” Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, declared.

Warner singled out Gabbard for previously labeling him a “brave whistleblower.”

“Every member of this committee supports the rights of legal whistleblowers. But Edward Snowden isn’t a whistleblower, and in this case, I’m a lot closer to [Republican Senator Tom Cotton’s] words, where he said Snowden is ‘an egotistical, serial liar and traitor’ and ‘deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his life.’” (Cotton is the chair of the committee.)

“Do you think Edward Snowden was brave?” asked Warner.

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