Tulsi Gabbard’s cult connections are difficult to hide
The Wall Street Journal reports:
To defend and burnish Tulsi Gabbard’s image as her political star was rising, her congressional campaign hired a public-affairs firm in 2017 that tried to suppress coverage of an alleged pyramid scheme connected to her Hindu sect, according to interviews, emails and Federal Election Commission records.
Gabbard, a former House member who is now President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, was raised in the Science of Identity Foundation, a sect tied to a direct-marketing firm accused of running a pyramid scheme in several countries. Neither Gabbard, the sect nor the firm, QI Group, wanted the relationships scrutinized.
Gabbard’s campaign paid Washington, D.C.,-based Potomac Square Group for the PR cleanup, trying to mask the connections. But the operation was directed by a Science of Identity follower—and longtime Gabbard adviser—who sits on the board of a QI subsidiary.
The revelations shed further light on Gabbard’s ties to the religious group—publicly described by some former followers as a cult that demands total loyalty to its founder—and to the Hong Kong-based QI, which has been a target of criminal and civil cases alleging fraud and racketeering in at least seven countries.
Lawmakers have looked closely at Gabbard’s connections with Science of Identity and QI ahead of her confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to people familiar with the matter. Gabbard’s ties raise questions about her judgment and loyalty, congressional staffers said.
Gabbard and many of her former Capitol Hill staffers are followers of the sect, people with knowledge of the matter said. Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, has called Chris Butler, the sect’s leader, her “guru dev,” a Hindu term that is frequently translated as divine teacher.
Science of Identity is entwined with QI, according to real-estate and corporate records, as well as interviews with former followers. Sunil Khemaney, who serves on the board of one of QI’s subsidiaries, is a longtime political fundraiser for Gabbard. She has described him as an “uncle.” [Continue reading…]
Gabbard’s own aunt once described the group as “the alt-right of the Hare Krishna movement.”
Butler had an appetite for temporal as well as spiritual power. Gabbard, a smart, good-looking girl from a political family, always appealed to him, Mann and Anita Van Duyn, another defector from the group, told me. Butler described Gabbard as a stellar pupil of his teaching. In her teens, Gabbard reportedly attended a school run by Butler’s followers in the Philippines. “He always wanted someone to be high up in the federal government” to direct the culture toward godliness, Van Duyn told me. [Continue reading…]
Tulsi Gabbard’s ties to Chris Butler, a controversial spiritual leader with extreme views and a history of allegedly mistreating his flock, have made headlines throughout her political career. And, after Donald Trump nominated her to serve as his director of national intelligence, one of the top Cabinet posts leading the national security apparatus, some fear her guru could be set to wield a dangerous level of influence.
Many of those with the most vehement concerns are people who formerly believed in Butler, whose main organization is called the Science of Identity Foundation. In conversations with TPM over the past week, they described their worries and the unique degree of involvement the guru has had in Gabbard’s political career. This has included, according to one ex-follower, Butler receiving detailed, regular “reports” on her campaigns and his group sending devotees to Gabbard’s events where they were “coaching everybody on how to behave.”
One person who has raised alarms about Butler’s sway over Gabbard is Anita van Duyn, who said she was among his flock from 1977 until 1994.
“He micromanages everything and, if you’re his disciple and he puts you in politics, he is going to micromanage everything,” Van Duyn said of Butler in one of a series of phone conversations with TPM. “That is my fear, that we’re really putting a hollow person in this position. That could be dangerous if the information gets in the wrong hands. And I do believe that her allegiance is first to her guru, second to her family, and third to America.” [Continue reading…]