A Vatican Meeting Added to Scrutiny of Tulsi Gabbard's Foreign Travels
Ms. Gabbard, President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, was briefly subject to special scrutiny on airline flights last year, but not, officials say, for the partisan reasons she has alleged.
'Starting last summer, former Representative Tulsi Gabbard publicly berated the Biden administration, claiming that she was placed on what she called “a domestic terror watch list” as punishment for critical comments she had made about Vice President Kamala Harris.
The reality was more complicated. A federal agency responsible for protecting flights did briefly subject her to special scrutiny — but not for the reason she asserted, according to two senior U.S. officials briefed on the matter. Rather, they said, the additional security measures were triggered by an event she attended at the Vatican that was organized by a European businessman who appeared on an F.B.I. watch list.
There is no indication that Ms. Gabbard, now President Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, did anything wrong by making the trip. And it is not clear why the F.B.I. had placed the European businessman on the watch list or whether he was placed on it by mistake.
But the travel to Italy, combined with a 2017 visit that Ms. Gabbard made to Syria and Lebanon, has raised questions about the extent to which Mr. Trump’s nominee to serve as the nation’s top intelligence official adequately weighed the implications of her foreign travels and associations.'> > >
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/us/politics/tulsi-gabbard-trump-intel-pick-watch-list.html