Former employees say Tulsi Gabbard’s views on Russia were shaped in part by Kremlin propaganda

Tulsi Gabbard’s rosy attitude toward Moscow has led some Democratic critics to suggest she may be “compromised” or perhaps even a “Russian asset” since Tulsi Gabbard was chosen by President-elect Donald Trump to be director of national intelligence – the ex claims -Hawaiian representative and army officer has vigorously denied this.

But former aides to Gabbard suspect that, as far as they know, her views on Russia and its polarizing leader Vladimir Putin were shaped not by covert intelligence recruitment but rather by her unorthodox media consumption habits.

Three former aides said Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, regularly read and shared articles from the Russian news site RT – formerly known as Russia Today – which US intelligence described in 2017 as “the Kremlin’s main international propaganda outlet.” .”

While it was unclear to former employees whether or when she stopped visiting the site, one former employee said Gabbard continued to distribute RT articles “long after” she was told the site was not a credible source of information.

Doug London, a 34-year-old retired intelligence officer, said Gabbard’s alleged penchant for relying at least in part on media outlets like RT to shape her view of the world reflects poorly on her suitability to carry out the duties of a director of the national secret service.

“That Gabbard’s views reflect Russia’s narrative and disinformation themes can only indicate naivety, collusion or politically opportunistic sycophancy to reflect whatever she thinks Trump wants to hear,” London said, adding, “which does not bode well for the chief intelligence adviser in charge.” “The President’s promise is to allow the (U.S. intelligence community) to influence decision-making by telling it like it is.”

Alexa Henning, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition team, said in a statement to ABC News that “this is false and is nothing more than a few former, conveniently anonymous, disgruntled employees.”

“Lt. Col. Gabbard’s views on foreign policy were shaped by her military service and multiple deployments to war zones where she saw the cost of war and who ultimately pays the price,” Henning said.

“The Russian Playbook”

Former congressional and campaign aides said it was unclear to what extent Gabbard’s views were shaped by what she read on RT – and they stressed that she consumed news from a variety of media outlets, including left-wing and right-wing blogs.

But over the past decade, Gabbard’s views on Russian aggression in Europe have changed in particularly dramatic ways.

In 2014, as Russian troops annexed Crimea, Gabbard — then a first-term Democratic U.S. representative from Hawaii — released a statement advocating for “meaningful American military assistance to Ukrainian forces” and calling on the U.S. to invoke “stricter, more painful economic policies” sanctions against Russia.

“The consequences of standing idly by while Russia continues to weaken Ukraine’s territorial integrity are clear,” she wrote at the time. “We must act in a way that takes seriously the threat of Russian aggression against its peaceful, sovereign neighbor.”

By 2017, however, her attitude had changed. In a lengthy memo to campaign officials outlining her views on foreign policy, a copy of which was obtained by ABC News, Gabbard accused the United States and NATO of provoking Russian aggression and decried the United States’ “hostility toward Putin.” .

“For Putin, there is certainly no guarantee that we will not attempt to overthrow the Russian government,” she wrote in the May 2017 memo headed “Fundraising Emails/Social Media.”

“In fact, I’m pretty sure there are American politicians who would like to do that,” she wrote.

She also condemned the very sanctions she had previously supported, writing: “Historically, the US has always wanted Russia to be a poor country.”

“It’s a question of respect,” she wrote. “The Russian people are a proud people and they do not want the United States and our allies trying to control them and their government.”

Gabbard’s opinion in the 2017 memo was “basically the Russian playbook,” said Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration.

“It’s dangerous,” Daalder said. “This line of thinking is not unique to Tulsi Gabbard, but it is certainly not what a major figure in a government would be comfortable adopting intellectually.”

In 2022, at the start of the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict, Gabbard hinted that Russian propaganda channels, including RT, were denounced as “fake” by the US and NATO.

Gabbard’s messages were at times so consistent with Kremlin talking points that at least one commentator in the Kremlin’s state media referred to her as “Russia’s girlfriend.”

A “disgraceful effort”

The US government first labeled RT a Kremlin propaganda mouthpiece after the 2016 presidential election, three years after Gabbard was elected to Congress.

Last September, the State Department wrote that there was evidence that “RT has become an entity with cyber capabilities beyond mere media operations.” The U.S. also imposed new sanctions on RT executives, including the editor-in-chief, to whom the USA accused him of making “a nefarious attempt to secretly recruit unwitting American influencers to support their malicious influence campaign.”

The Justice Department also charged two RT employees in September for their alleged roles in what the DOJ called a scheme to pay right-wing social media influencers nearly $10 million for “distributing content deemed favorable.” apply to the Russian government.”

In the decade since her arrival in Washington, experts say Gabbard has regularly espoused views consistent with those of RT and other Russian propaganda outlets.

For example, in its 2017 assessment, the US intelligence community wrote that RT “has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks” and “routinely provides favorable coverage of Assange (WikiLeaks founder Julian) and provides him with a platform to denounce the United States.”

Gabbard has long been an outspoken supporter of Assange, arguing in a June 2024 appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher” that “(Assange’s) prosecution, the charges against him, are one of the biggest attacks on press freedom that we have .”, and freedom of speech.”

In Congress, Gabbard also sponsored a resolution calling on the federal government to “drop all charges against Edward Snowden,” the former National Security Agency contractor who supplied WikiLeaks with secret documents to uncover what he called “horrible “U.S. referred to government surveillance capabilities.

RT often reports enthusiastically on Snowden, who has been living in asylum in Russia for more than a decade.

“Indisputable facts”

But it is Gabbard’s portrayal of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that most galvanizes her national security critics.

In March 2022, Gabbard posted a video on Twitter – now will” – a debunked theory regularly spread by RT and other Kremlin propaganda channels.

Experts say RT and other state-controlled news outlets have frequently exploited Gabbard’s public statements to bolster the Biolab conspiracy theory and other disinformation by recirculating clips of her repeating Kremlin propaganda as evidence of the false claims – and effectively creating an echo. Chamber to expand their propaganda machine.

Still, Brian O’Neill, a former senior intelligence official with experience briefing senior policymakers, expressed confidence that career intelligence officers can support Gabbard with “a constant stream of new information” that will help shape her understanding of emerging world events .

“Newly appointed individuals in such roles always bring with them biases, but like their predecessors, they will be subject to comprehensive briefings based on solid evidence presented by people of high integrity and expertise,” O’Neill said.

“Nevertheless,” O’Neill warned, “Trump’s well-documented hostility and skepticism toward the (intelligence community) will shape the environment into which she enters. If she takes a similar stance, she risks prioritizing the intelligence community’s input or dismissing the inconvenient truths that have been presented to her.

ABC News’ Shannon Kingston contributed to this report.