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Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the apical Democrat connected the Senate Intelligence Committee, grilled President Donald Trump's DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard implicit her erstwhile remarks praising whistleblower Edward Snowden.
"Until you are nominated by the president to beryllium the DNI, you consistently praised the actions of Edward Snowden, someone, I believe, jeopardized the information of our federation and then, to flaunt that, fled to Russia," Warner asked of Gabbard connected Thursday morning.
"You adjacent called Edward Snowden and I punctuation here, ‘a brave whistleblower.’ Every subordinate of this committee supports the rights of ineligible whistleblowers. But Edward Snowden isn't a whistleblower, and successful this case, I'm a batch person to the chairman's words wherever helium said Snowden is, quote, ‘an egotistical serial liar and traitor' who, quote, ‘deserves to rot successful jailhouse for the remainder of his life.’ Ms. Gabbard is simple, yes oregon nary question. Do you inactive deliberation Edward Snowden is brave?"
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Gabbard pushed backmost that Snowden "broke the law" and does not hold with his leak of intelligence.
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"Mr. Vice Chairman, Edward Snowden broke the law. I bash not hold with oregon enactment with each of the accusation and quality that helium released, nor the mode successful which helium did it. There would person been opportunities for him to travel to you connected this committee, oregon question retired the IG to merchandise that information. The information is, helium also, adjacent arsenic helium broke the law, released accusation that exposed egregious, amerciable and unconstitutional programs that are happening wrong our government," Gabbard responded.
In 2013, Snowden was moving arsenic an IT contractor for the National Security Agency erstwhile helium traveled to Hong Kong to conscionable with 3 journalists and transferred to them thousands of pages of classified documents astir the U.S. government’s surveillance of its citizens.
"I'm making myself precise clear. Edward Snowden broke the law. He released accusation astir the United States government," Gabbard continued arsenic she defended her position.
"If I whitethorn conscionable decorativeness my thoughts, Senator," Gabbard continued, arsenic Warner spoke implicit her. "In this relation that I've been nominated for, if confirmed arsenic manager of nationalist intelligence, I volition beryllium liable for protecting our nation's secrets. And I person 4 contiguous steps that I would instrumentality to forestall different Snowden-like leak."
Gabbard has antecedently lauded Snowden, including during an quality connected "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast successful 2019.
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"If it wasn’t for Snowden, the American radical would ne'er person learned the NSA was collecting telephone records and spying connected Americans," she said connected "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast astatine the time.
Gabbard appeared earlier the Senate Intelligence Committee connected Thursday greeting arsenic portion of her confirmation process to service arsenic the second Trump administration's manager of nationalist intelligence.
Fox News Digital's Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
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