Tulsi Gabbard’s past statements on Syria, Russia, Ukraine and warrantless spying have all given Republican senators pause. But for some lawmakers another issue looms just as large: Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who released reams of classified data on American surveillance programs in 2013 and then fled to Russia.
While in Congress, Ms. Gabbard introduced legislation that would have offered additional whistle-blower protections for people, like Mr. Snowden, accused of violating the Espionage Act. Working with Matt Gaetz, who was then a Florida congressman, she also introduced legislation that called on the charges against Mr. Snowden to be dropped.
Ms. Gabbard is now President Trump’s pick to oversee the nation’s spy agencies as the director of national intelligence. At her confirmation on Thursday, senators plan to press her on a range of issues, including Mr. Snowden.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and one of the lawmakers who will be questioning Ms. Gabbard, said Mr. Snowden’s disclosures “jeopardized people who were helping us.”
“One of my greatest concerns is how she views Edward Snowden in light of the resolution that she co-authored with Matt Gaetz calling for all criminal charges against him, which were extremely serious and involved sharing highly classified information with our adversaries, to be dropped,” Ms. Collins said.
In the face of such skepticism, Ms. Gabbard is expected to distance herself from Mr. Snowden at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to a person briefed on her plans. Ms. Gabbard plans to say that she believes Mr. Snowden’s disclosures hurt the intelligence community and national security, the person said.
It will be an about-face. In 2019, as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Ms. Gabbard suggested that Mr. Snowden’s disclosures about the National Security Agency’s activities had a positive impact. She told CNN that she and other members of Congress worked to “try to shut down these avenues that some of our intelligence agencies have abused and violated our constitutional Fourth Amendment rights.”
“If it wasn’t for Snowden the American people would never have learned the N.S.A. was collecting phone records and spying on Americans,” she said in a social media message that year. In an appearance on the popular podcast hosted by Joe Rogan, she vowed to pardon Mr. Snowden.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been a harsh critic of Mr. Snowden’s and repeatedly called him a traitor.
“Edward Snowden was an egotistical serial liar and traitor who jeopardized the safety of Americans and allies,” Mr. Cotton wrote on social media in 2016.
Since becoming the committee’s chairman this month, Mr. Cotton has alluded to policy differences with Ms. Gabbard but defended her patriotism and integrity.
“I understand that people have their differences of opinion with Ms. Gabbard,” Mr. Cotton told Fox News on Sunday. “Probably some Republicans disagree with the vote she’s cast as a Democratic congresswoman. A lot of Democrats may be upset that she finally saw the light and left the Democratic Party.”
Ms. Gabbard may also be asked to defend her positions that have been at odds with Mr. Trump’s. In 2018, Mr. Trump released a long statement defending Saudi Arabia after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist. In a social media post, Ms. Gabbard retorted: “Hey @realdonaldtrump: being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not ‘America First.’”
As a Democrat, Ms. Gabbard also criticized Mr. Trump’s policies on Israel, Iran and China.
Mr. Snowden however has been a repeated point of friction in Ms. Gabbard’s conversations with various senators, according to congressional aides and Trump administration officials. Senator James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican, said he was among those who had spoken with Ms. Gabbard about Mr. Snowden.
“The office of the director of national intelligence,” Mr. Lankford has said, “has a responsibility to be able to make sure we don’t have secrets leaked out.”
In addition to Mr. Snowden, Ms Gabbard has defended Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who published documents leaked by Chelsea Manning, then a low-level Army intelligence analyst, about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“ So much of the information that has been released has informed the American people about actions that were taking place that they should be aware of,” Ms. Gabbard said in the 2019 CNN interview. “It provided transparency.”
The disagreement over Mr. Snowden reflects an underlying issue between Ms. Gabbard and at least some Republicans in the Senate over the reach of American intelligence surveillance.
Mr. Snowden exposed the broad scope of and new information about the National Security Agency’s collection of bulk records of Americans’ phone records.
Ms. Gabbard, like Mr. Trump, has been skeptical of the government’s other efforts to collect information, including a surveillance law known as Section 702. That law allows the government, without a warrant, to collect communications of foreigners abroad, including when those people are interacting with Americans.
But intelligence officials, and many Republican senators, have said that Section 702 is a critical national security tool, one that has helped warn against terrorist attacks and other threats.
Privacy advocates have raised questions about all such intelligence collection. The National Security Agency programs Mr. Snowden disclosed and Section 702 involve secret intelligence agencies collecting information, sometimes including Americans, with limited oversight.
Mr. Cotton has complained about attempts to tie the issues together and said Mr. Snowden’s leaks have warped the debate over Section 702.
“Unfortunately, this and other programs were distorted in the public debate by a traitor, a disgruntled ex-N.S.A. contractor, Edward Snowden, who now sits in the warm embrace of Russian intelligence services,” Mr. Cotton said in 2017.
While 702 collection is aimed overseas, it sweeps up calls and communications involving Americans. F.B.I. agents have been criticized for improperly looking up information about Americans that was collected under Section 702. Such searches were not supposed to happen routinely, and subsequent reforms have sought to curb the practice.
After several tense conversations with lawmakers, Ms. Gabbard announced that she now supported the reauthorization of the law.
Mr. Cotton praised that switch.
“Tulsi Gabbard has assured me in our conversations that she supports Section 702 as recently amended and that she will follow the law and support its reauthorization,” Mr. Cotton said in a statement.
But Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, said it might be hard to trust Ms. Gabbard’s change of heart on Section 702 and Mr. Snowden, who he said “should be in jail.”
“It’s not like she said something once,” Mr. Kelly said. “She has done multiple pieces of legislation on this issue. When somebody changes their position, especially when she is changing her position to get a job, you have to wonder what she really believes.”
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