ABC News reports:

Since becoming President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard’s rosy posture toward Moscow has prompted some Democratic critics to suggest that she could be “compromised,” or perhaps even a “Russian asset” — claims the ex-Hawaii representative and Army officer has forcefully denied.

But former advisers to Gabbard suggest that her views on Russia and its polarizing leader, Vladimir Putin, have been shaped not by some covert intelligence recruitment as far as they know — but instead 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 the U.S. intelligence community characterized in 2017 as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”

While it was not clear to those former staffers whether or when she stopped frequenting the site, one former aide said Gabbard continued to circulate articles from RT “long after” she was advised that the outlet was not a credible source of information.

Doug London, a retired 34-year veteran intelligence officer, said Gabbard’s alleged penchant to rely at least in part on outlets like RT to shape her view of the world reflects poorly on her suitability to fulfill the responsibilities of a director of national intelligence.

“That Gabbard’s views mirror Russia’s narrative and disinformation themes can but suggest naïveté, collusion, or politically opportunistic sycophancy to echo whatever she believes Trump wants to hear,” London said, adding, “none of which bodes well for the president’s principal intelligence adviser responsible for enabling the [U.S. intelligence community] to inform decision-making by telling it like it is.” [Continue reading…]