Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s intel pick, was placed on government watch list for overseas travel and foreign connections
Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence community, was briefly placed on a Transportation Security Administration list that prompts additional security screening before flights after her overseas travel patterns and foreign connections triggered a government algorithm earlier this year, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
Gabbard was quickly removed from the list, a little-known program called “Quiet Skies,” after going public with claims she had been added to a “secret terror watchlist.” A federal official familiar with the program told CNN there are specified criteria for removing or adding individuals and that no one is removed from the list because of public statements they make.
Gabbard has claimed she was put on the list because she had criticized then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris in an interview with Fox News — something two of the sources flatly denied had anything to do with it.
“The TSA placed me on the Quiet Skies domestic terror watchlist in what I can only describe as the ultimate betrayal,” she said in a post on X in September. “The Harris-Biden regime has now labeled me a domestic terror threat. Why? They see me as a threat to their power.”
The episode has raised eyebrows among security officials, who point to Gabbard’s history of unusual relationships overseas. As a member of Congress in 2017, she worked outside of official channels to travel to Syria to meet with President Bashar al-Assad.
CNN has reached out to Gabbard for comment.
The circumstances that led to Gabbard’s inclusion on Quiet Skies may be entirely benign, these sources said. But for a nominee for a top position — much less the director of national intelligence — to have been placed on a government watchlist of any kind is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, several US officials said.
Under normal circumstances, one official said, Gabbard would be forced to explain the underlying foreign travel or contacts in question during her background check.
But Trump has indicated that he may eschew the normal background check process for his top nominees, raising questions about what, if anything, Gabbard will be required to disclose — or whether national security officials will even be given an opportunity to assess if Gabbard’s conduct posed any risk. [Continue reading…]