See below for video and prepared remarks of the opening statement of Senate Intel Vice Chairman Sen. Mark Warner, in the annual Worldwide Threats Hearing. Also, check out video of Sen. Warner questioning Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning to our witnesses.
Let me begin by thanking the tens of thousands of men and women across America’s Intelligence Community who work every day to keep our country safe.
Their work is, by necessity, secret. That is the nature of intelligence.
But that is also why hearings like this one matter so much.
Over the past year, we have seen a series of developments that raise serious concerns about the erosion of safeguards that protect both our democracy and our security. And nowhere is that more worrying than when it comes to the integrity of our elections.
For a decade now, our Intelligence Community has warned that foreign adversaries – including Russia, China, and Iran – are actively seeking to shape the outcome of American elections.
Those efforts have included cyber intrusions, disinformation campaigns, and covert influence operations designed to divide Americans and undermine confidence in democratic institutions.
Protecting our elections from those threats should be one of the Intelligence Community’s highest priorities.
The DNI is supposed to be coordinating intelligence on foreign election interference… warning the American people about adversaries seeking to undermine our democracy… and ensuring that federal, state, and local officials have the information they need.
Congress even required the creation of a Foreign Malign Influence Center inside the Office of the DNI to coordinate the Intelligence Community’s response to foreign election interference and ensure that those threats are properly shared across the government.
That is the mission Congress assigned to the DNI.
But while foreign adversaries are actively probing our democratic institutions, the DNI has eliminated the Foreign Malign Influence Center… and does not have a designated official coordinating the response to election threats.
And for months, this Committee has repeatedly requested briefings from the Intelligence Community – briefings that are required by law – on legitimate foreign threats to the midterms.
We have received no response.
That silence should concern every member of this Committee, because it clearly demonstrates that the DNI is not interested in protecting American democracy by combatting foreign interference.
Instead, we have seen the DNI involve herself in purely domestic matters.
Last month, we saw Director Gabbard personally participate in a law enforcement raid to seize election ballots and voting machine records in Fulton County, Georgia – a raid tied to an election that the president lost six years ago.
When the warrant affidavit supporting that raid was unsealed, it showed something deeply troubling: there was no foreign connection to justify the involvement of our nation’s top spy.
Instead, the predicate for that warrant was a slop of debunked conspiracy theories that had already been rejected repeatedly… by courts, by independent investigators, and by Georgia’s own Republican Secretary of State.
Yet the nation’s top intelligence official was personally involved in this operation. That raises one very serious question: if the Intelligence Community is not being mobilized to address foreign threats… then why is it being deployed at all?
The DNI’s appearance at this raid – as well as her involvement in seizing voting machines from Puerto Rico – suggests something that should alarm every American: an organized effort to misuse her national security powers to interfere in domestic politics… and provide a pretext for the president’s unconstitutional efforts to seize control of the upcoming elections.
The president has repeatedly pushed for the nationalization of our elections – calling for the federal government to override state election laws and, quote, “take over” voting, while continuing to make false statements about election fraud.
And we have heard troubling rhetoric from senior officials that reinforce those concerns. As former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said publicly, “We’ve been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.”
At the same time, the administration has brought into government individuals promoting conspiracy theories about our elections. The so-called White House Director of Election Security and Integrity, Kurt Olsen, played a key role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Now Mr. Olsen holds a position inside the federal government with the authority to refer criminal investigations and access our most sensitive information about election security. According to court filings, he helped trigger the FBI seizure of ballots in Fulton County.
So it is worth asking: why is someone whose career has been devoted to undermining the legitimate results of a democratic election now operating from inside the federal government with access to law enforcement and intelligence authorities? What exactly is he being empowered to do?
As our members know, this Committee was created in the aftermath of the unconstitutional abuses exposed after Watergate. The guardrails we have built around our intelligence and law enforcement agencies over the past several decades exist for a reason. Without them, America begins to look a lot more like the adversaries emphasized in this year’s Annual Threat Assessment: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea… and less like a democracy.
Confronting these very clear and present threats to American security, requires experienced professionals and intelligence agencies that are focused squarely on their mission.
Instead, over the past year we have seen actions that only serve to weaken them.
Politically-motivated purges at the FBI have resulted in the exodus of hundreds of agents, and the reassignment of hundreds more from key national security areas like counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and cyber, to immigration.
In one troubling case, agents working on a task force focused on threats from Iran – clearly quite important right now – were dismissed because they had previously participated in the investigation of the president’s mishandling of classified information.
Elsewhere, the Bureau’s budget is being slashed. Last year, it cut over $500 million, with the largest decreases from cyber, counterterrorism, and counterintelligence.
And the remaining scarce resources are being squandered on things like a $60 million jet for the Director’s personal travel so he can go golfing in Scotland and party with athletes in Milan. In fact, according to a whistleblower, those flights became so frequent that they even delayed the Bureau’s response to major incidents, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the mass shooting at Brown University.
Credible reports also indicate that highly trained FBI agents from elite SWAT units have been reassigned to chauffer his girlfriend – an unprecedented use of personnel whose training is intended for hunting violent criminals and neutralizing terrorists.
Unfortunately, this dysfunction has not been limited to the FBI.
Both the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency were left leaderless for months after the president fired their directors – one at the behest of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, and the other for providing a fact-based assessment that contradicted the president’s claims about “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear program…
Clearly, if the program had truly been obliterated… the president wouldn’t now be bombing it again.
More than one-third of the personnel at CISA – created by Congress to protect critical infrastructure like power, water, and election systems – have been forced out. Seems particularly relevant now given the damage from Salt Typhoon and the recent Iranian cyber attack on Stryker.
And we are now seeing in real time the costs of cuts to the State Department: thousands of American citizens were trapped in a literal war zone with little assistance from their own government. For a time, those calling the State Department hotline for assistance were greeted with a prerecorded message that said, quote, “Please do not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation.”
During a foreseeable security crisis – one instigated and chosen by this president – American citizens were essentially told: you are on your own.
That same attitude is also pushing some of our closest friends into the arms of our most capable foes, with profound consequences.
Two of our most significant allies, Canada and the UK, are currently working to sign trade deals with China, because the United States is no longer viewed as a dependable partner.
And in the president’s war of choice with Iran – a war that has already killed 13 service members, cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, and scrambled supply chains from oil to fertilizer to aluminum – nobody answered the call when the president asked for help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
As the president’s own counterterrorism chief acknowledged in his resignation yesterday, Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States.
Our allies have been alienated and distracted by the administration’s unilateral threats, like invading Greenland… and the result is clear: Americans have been left more exposed in an already dangerous conflict.
Now, what I just outlined is quite a list… and a partial one at that.
So why does this all matter?
It matters because I believe the warnings contained in this year’s Annual Threat Assessment. I believe our IC when they say that “the global security environment is becoming more complex” and that “armed conflict is becoming more global.” And I also agree with the assessment when it says that to succeed, we must “think prudently and prioritize our efforts.”
On the topic of the Annual Threat Assessment, I want to close where I began by noting that, for the first time since 2017, the Annual Threat Assessment includes nothing about adversary attempts to influence American elections.
That omission does not mean the threat has disappeared. It means the Intelligence Community is no longer being allowed to speak honestly about it – and raises serious questions about what Director Gabbard is choosing to prioritize instead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.”
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Sen. Mark Warner: “Where is the authority for you to involve yourself in a domestic law enforcement activity?”
Tulsi Gabbard: “I did not participate in a law enforcement activity, nor would I.”
Sen. Warner: “You were present at the scene.”
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Sen. Mark Warner: “The president continues said he was shocked that the Iranians had moved to take over the Strait of Hormuz.”
Tulsi Gabbard: “I’m not aware of those remarks.”
Sen. Warner: “What about the comments the president made that he was surprised that Iran struck the adjacent Gulf states?”
Gabbard: “I’m not aware of those remarks.”
Sen. Warner: “Did you did you brief the president that if he starts a war of choice, that the likely result would be that Iran would strike adjacent Gulf nations and close the Strait of Hormuz?”
Gabbard: “I have not and won’t divulge internal conversations.”
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Sen. Mark Warner: “In your printed testimony: as a result of operation midnight hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There’s been no efforts to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. You omitted that paragraph from your oral opening.”
Tulsi Gabbard: “I recognized that the time was running long, and I skipped through some of the portions.”
Sen. Warner: “You chose to omit the parts that contradict the president.”
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