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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Sen. Mark Warner to call out Tulsi Gabbard in floor speech for ‘going | |
to war’ with intelligence community | |
By Jim Sciutto, Jeremy Herb, CNN | |
Updated: | |
6:00 AM EDT, Thu September 18, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia is escalating his criticism of Director of | |
National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, accusing her and the Trump | |
administration of “going to war” with intelligence professionals | |
and sacrificing the integrity of US intelligence “on the altar of | |
partisan convenience.” | |
Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, plans to | |
deliver a Senate speech Thursday warning of the dangers of the steps | |
Gabbard has taken atop the US intelligence apparatus, according to | |
excerpts of his remarks obtained by CNN. | |
“For months now, we’ve watched President Trump’s administration, | |
led in this arena by his hand-picked Director of National Intelligence, | |
Ms. Gabbard, systematically undermine the men and women whose only | |
mission is to keep this country safe,” Warner will say, according to | |
the remarks. “If we let politics dictate what intelligence is | |
acceptable, we are effectively flying blind.” | |
This is not the first time Warner has criticized Gabbard, who was | |
tapped by President Donald Trump to lead an intelligence community he | |
openly distrusts and criticizes. | |
“Tulsi Gabbard is a threat to our national security and should be | |
fired,” Warner last month, after Gabbard declassified documents | |
related to the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian | |
interference in the 2016 election, which Warner said was released for | |
“clearly political purposes, without proper coordination with the | |
agencies responsible for protecting sources and methods.” | |
Gabbard responded to Warner’s criticism last month by saying that he | |
“continues to be a reliable soldier” defending the intelligence | |
community because she is working to “root out those deep state bad | |
actors in the intelligence community.” | |
CNN has reached out to the Office of the Director of National | |
Intelligence for comment on Warner’s planned remarks. | |
In his speech, Warner intends to point to a litany of actions Gabbard | |
and other Trump administration officials have taken, including the | |
declassifying of documents that the assessment on Russian election | |
interference was a hoax. | |
Democrats have accused Gabbard and Trump of using the Russia | |
investigation documents to try to distract from the furor surrounding | |
the Jeffrey Epstein files — and to punish his domestic political | |
enemies. | |
Warner accused Gabbard of of 37 officials last month as a | |
“transparently political act of vengeance.” The move, he said, | |
amounted to “sweeping aside decades of experience with the stroke of | |
a pen, and, in at least one case, exposing an official working under | |
cover.” | |
The Virginia Democrat cited the firing of numerous intelligence | |
officials, including the chairman and deputy chairman of the National | |
Intelligence Council and the general leading the Defense Intelligence | |
Agency, who were pushed out after producing assessments on Venezuela | |
and Iran that angered the president. | |
Warner also derided the role , the controversial far-right activist, | |
has played in successfully lobbying for intelligence officials to be | |
dismissed. | |
“Time and again, we have seen senior officials pushed out of their | |
posts because Ms. Loomer decided they were not sufficiently loyal to | |
the president,” Warner plans to say. “These are critical posts in | |
one of our most important intelligence organizations, vacated not | |
because of misconduct or failure, but because of the whims of a | |
political provocateur whose public record is filled with hate and | |
conspiracies.” | |
Loomer’s criticism also led to of an oversight visit Warner had | |
planned to speak to officials at the National Geospatial-Intelligence | |
Agency in Virginia. | |
Loomer earlier this month that the National Geospatial-Intelligence | |
Agency chief should be fired, declaring that the “fireside love fest | |
with anti-Trump Democrat Senator @MarkWarner Mark Warner has been | |
CANCELED!” | |
“What may be most astonishing is who seems to be calling the shots | |
— not seasoned national security leaders, not career intelligence | |
professionals, but conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer,” Warner plans to | |
say, according to the excerpts. | |
“The safeguards we put in place, the oversight this body provides, | |
only work if intelligence officers know that they can tell the truth | |
without losing their jobs,” Warner will say. “If analysts believe | |
their careers will be destroyed for offering inconvenient assessments, | |
then we will only get the intelligence the White House wants.” | |
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