On Thursday, nearly 100 former diplomats, national security officials and intelligence officials wrote to Senate leaders expressing alarm at Gabbard's nomination. The former officials, who have served under both Democratic and Republican administrations, urged closed-door confirmation hearings to allow lawmakers to carry out a full review of government information about Gabbard.
"Several of Ms. Gabbard's past actions call into question her ability to deliver unbiased intelligence briefings to the President, Congress, and to the entire national security apparatus," the letter stated.
"We'll have lots of questions. She met with Bashar Assad, we'll want to know what the purpose was and what the direction for that was, as a member of Congress," Lankford told CNN.
One former senior intelligence official said Gabbard's statements on Syria called into question her willingness to accept facts that don't fit her world view.
"She basically completely adopted the Assad regime propaganda, where she suggested falsely that the U.S. was supporting terrorist extremists in Syria, and didn't mention that the Assad regime had been slaughtering fellow Syrians there," the former official said. "So what does that say about her judgment?"
Some lawmakers and former intelligence officials say they worry that America's partners, including those in the vital "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance -- the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- may choose to withhold some sensitive information if they distrusted Gabbard as director of intelligence.
Nikki Haley, the former Republican governor of South Carolina who served as ambassador to the United Nations in the first Trump administration, has sharply criticized Gabbard's nomination, saying her statements showed she was not ready to assess threats to the United States.
"After Russia invaded Ukraine, Tulsi Gabbard literally blamed NATO, our western alliance that's responsible for countering Russia," Haley said on her Sirius XM radio show last week. "She blamed NATO for the attack on Ukraine, and the Russians and the Chinese echoed her talking points and her interviews on Russian and Chinese television."
She added: "This is not a place for a Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer."
Democrats and Republicans in Congress worried that Gabbard might leak information to Syria
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