Congress
Former officials urge closed-door Senate hearings on Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for intel chief
Nearly 100 former senior U.S. diplomats and intelligence and national security officials have urged Senate leaders to schedule closed-door hearings to allow for a full review of the government’s files on former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick to be national intelligence director.
The former officials, who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, said they were “alarmed” by the choice of Gabbard to oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. They said her past actions “call into question her ability to deliver unbiased intelligence briefings to the President, Congress, and to the entire national security apparatus.”
A spokesperson for Gabbard on the Trump transition team on Thursday denounced the appeal as an “unfounded” and “partisan” attack.
Avril Haines, the current director of national intelligence, when asked Thursday whether intelligence sharing with allies could be in jeopardy under the next administration, cited the importance of those relationships and noted the strong bipartisan support for them in Congress.
The question, at a Council on Foreign Relations talk, focused on the especially close intelligence sharing among the Five Eyes — the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It did not mention Gabbard by name.
“It is hard for me to believe that anybody coming in wouldn’t want to maintain those relationships,” Haines said. “So I wouldn’t think of them as being in significant risk,” she added. “I certainly hope that will continue.”
Among those who signed the letter to Senate leaders were former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, former NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller, former national security adviser Anthony Lake, and numerous retired ambassadors and high-ranking military officers.
They wrote to current Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and incoming Republican Majority Leader John Thune on Wednesday to urge the closed briefings as part of the Senate’s review of Trump’s top appointments.
They requested that Senate committees “consider in closed sessions all information available to the U.S. government when considering Ms. Gabbard’s qualifications to manage our country’s intelligence agencies, and more importantly, the protection of our intelligence sources and methods.”
The letter singles out Gabbard’s 2017 meetings in Syria with President Bashar Assad, who is supported by Russian, Iranian and Iranian-allied forces in a now 13-year war against Syrian opposition forces seeking his overthrow.
The U.S., which cut relations with Assad’s government and imposed sanctions over his conduct of the war, maintains about 900 troops in opposition-controlled northeast Syria, saying they are needed to block a resurgence of extremist groups.
Gabbard, a Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii at the time of her Syria trip, drew heavy criticism for her meetings with a U.S. adversary and brutal leader.
As the letter notes, her statements on the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine have aligned with Russian talking points, diverging from U.S. positions and policy.
Gabbard throughout her political career has urged the U.S. to limit military engagement abroad other than combatting Islamic extremist groups. She has defended the Syria trip by saying it is necessary to engage with U.S. enemies.
In postings on social media earlier this year she confirmed that the U.S. had for a time placed her “on a secret terror watch list” as a “potential domestic terror threat.” She blamed political retaliation. Neither she nor U.S. authorities have publicly detailed the circumstances involved.
Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Gabbard with the Trump team, called the letter sent to the Senate leaders “a perfect example” of why Trump chose Gabbard for this position.
“These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence,’” and use classified government information as a “partisan weapon to smear and imply things about their political enemy,” Henning said.
A spokesperson for Thune did not immediately respond to questions about the request.
Adam Hamilton raised $10.6 million in the third quarter of 2026 across his Senate campaign and his joint fundraising committees, his campaign tells Blue Light News, a significant haul for the Kansas Democrat.
The fundraising total illustrates Democrats’ newfound bullishness about flipping a Senate seat in the deep-red state for the first time since 1932.
“This grassroots support sends a clear message: with three weeks until Election Day, Adam Hamilton is building the momentum to win,” said Hamilton campaign spokesperson Tyson Brody.
Hamilton’s third-quarter figure is nearly triple his $3.66 million second-quarter total. His campaign did not provide a current cash-on-hand total.
National Democrats began pumping money into Kansas in recent days, a sign of their growing hopes that Hamilton could win. Last week, Senate Majority PAC — Senate Democrats’ top super PAC — reserved $5 million in television ads backing Hamilton. American Bridge PAC and Lower Costs Now, a new group affiliated with former Vice President Kamala Harris’ super PAC, have spent in Kansas in recent weeks.
Republicans have also flocked to Kansas to prop up Marshall: Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP’s top PAC, has spent or reserved nearly $11 million backing Marshall in the past week, according to tracking firm AdImpact.
“It took us five months to raise $15 million. [Marshall] got it in a day,” Hamilton said at a campaign event in Lawrence, Kansas on Monday. “So please help us.”
Marshall’s campaign has yet to release his third-quarter fundraising totals. As of mid-July, Marshall had over $5 million in the bank to $1.73 million for Hamilton.
A bipartisan Senate duo is urging Trump national security officials to “bring its full capacities to bear” to stave off threats posed by artificial intelligence — sooner rather than later.
Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, and Republican South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, who serves on the Senate Armed Services cybersecurity subcommittee, are calling for a full government response to a growing number of cybersecurity breaches.
“Recent AI security incidents should serve as a warning,” the senators wrote in a Tuesday letter to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and White House Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. “Advanced AI agents have escaped testing environments, bypassed safeguards, and gained unauthorized access to real-world systems owned by government agencies and private organizations.”
Spokespeople for Clayton and Kratsios did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Their letter comes as lawmakers struggle to hash out what legislation on AI safety, if any, might look like. Members are currently in recess ahead of the November elections and there’s little hope progress can be made by the year’s end.
But those lawmakers who have been engaged on the topic for years now have mapped out administrative actions the Trump administration could move on now, without waiting on Congress.
The Cantwell and Rounds priorities include: strengthening federal AI safety and security standards at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST; expanding independent testing capabilities at the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence, Department of Energy and the national labs; and working with the tech industry to develop and deploy defensive AI tools.
Specifically, the senators wrote, new NIST standards should address the risks posed by advanced AI capabilities, including the “potential misuse by malicious actors” to conduct sophisticated cyberattacks, automate attacks at scale and agents that threaten external systems and critical infrastructure.
They also said the federal government capacity should be complemented by universities and other research organizations, as well as by private sector, third-party evaluators.
Finally, they point to ways the government could use existing programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to work with AI labs to help detect threats and reinforce vulnerable systems.
A bipartisan group of senators urged President Donald Trump to rescind his recent diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, amid bubbling anger on Capitol Hill about Trump’s announcement.
In a letter sent to the White House, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the senators warned that the president’s deal with Russia will not “achieve just ends” or benefit Americans.
“Granting Moscow the ability to sell Russian diesel freely in global markets damages American security interests and is a betrayal of the people of Ukraine, who continue to defend themselves from Putin’s murderous, illegal war,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “This deal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies; it should be rescinded.”
On Sunday, a smaller group of senators called on the president to “immediately reverse course” on the plan in a statement. Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — who signed on to both — said Sunday there may be “a legitimate case for saying the president’s not following the law.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump announced in a social media post on Friday that Russia would “immediately supply” diesel fuel to global markets — including potentially the U.S. — to help relieve high prices driven, in part, by the ongoing war with Iran. Though Trump has repeatedly defended the U.S.’s actions against Iran, on Saturday he demanded an end to Ukrainian drone strikes that have crippled Russian oil refineries that he argues have caused the record-high oil prices.
The senators on Tuesday argued that the deal with Russia will have a “negligible impact” on fuel prices while providing Putin with “more fuel to finance his war machine” as Russia continues its “brutal attacks on Ukrainian civilians.”
The deal with Russia is a sharp pivot from a sweeping sanctions package signed into law last month. That legislation — championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — was meant to deplete Moscow’s resources by targeting Russian officials, banks and a shadow fleet of oil tankers. It drew widespread bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress.
Senators on Tuesday referenced the package as they condemned Putin as a “tyrant.”
“For decades, America has stood as the bastion of freedom against tyranny, and American presidents have embodied our nation’s resistance to tyrants. Putin is a tyrant,” the letter reads. “Withdraw from this agreement, rescind General License No. 135, and execute the authorities provided under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. Maintain our legacy – and the duty America holds – as leader of the free world.”
In addition to Blumenthal and Tillis, Tuesday’s letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Jack Reed (R.I.), and Chris Coons (Del.) and Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Susan Collins (Maine), Alan Armstrong (Okla.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and John Cornyn (Texas).
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