A senior Senate Republican has exposed how the Biden administration surveilled now-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as a private citizen, going as far as having federal air marshals fly on planes with her.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) opened his remarks before the committee with a bombshell about how the government spied on the former congresswoman and supporter of President Donald Trump in 2024.
“Just last night, I received the first set of records from the department regarding Tulsi Gabbard placement on the TSA Quiet Skies watch list,” Paul told the panel.
“These documents confirm our suspicions: Federal Air Marshals surveilled the now Director of National Intelligence during domestic flights in 2024, reporting back information related to her appearance and even how many electronics she was observed using,” said Paul.
Paul, who took over the committee in January, later added that the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration had its federal air marshals board flights with her as part of the surveillance, unbeknownst to her.
“I’m horrified by the idea that we took a former congresswoman and we’re surveilling her and riding on jets with her,” said Paul.
Gabbard responded to Paul’s comments in a post to X following the hearing.
“Under the flimsy guise of ‘domestic terrorism,’ Federal law enforcement and intelligence were repeatedly weaponized against me and other Americans who exercised our First Amendment rights in speaking out against the Biden Administration’s policies and therefore deemed a threat to their power,” Gabbard wrote.
Paul said he anticipates that Gabbard was not the only person that the Biden administration spied on and pushed the witness, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, to report back on employees who have been fired.
“I want to hear that people have been let go, that they’re no longer doing this, if there were abuses of Tulsi Gabbard’s liberties,” said Paul. “I want repercussions to come from this.”
Gabbard echoed Paul’s calls for overhauling the practices of the TSA.
“As Director of National Intelligence, I am focused every day on ending the weaponization and politicization of the Intelligence Community that has resulted in undermining our God-given freedoms and civil liberties,” Gabbard said in her post.
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Gabbard is a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who left her political party in 2022 and joined the Republican Party in 2024, backing Trump.
Gabbard was accused repeatedly by Democrats during last year’s election to be an ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
