During the confirmation hearing for Director of National Intelligence, Senator Mark Kelly attacked nominee Tulsi Gabbard over her past criticisms of US policy in Syria. Kelly asserted that Gabbard was repeating Russian talking points, while Tulsi argued that she was exposing US support for al-Qaeda. 

During Thursday’s Senate committee session, Sen. Kelly brought up Gabbard’s frequent criticism of US policy in Syria. He claimed that Gabbard was repeating Russian and Iranian talking points by discussing the US support for terror groups in Syria. 

Gabbard fired back at Kelly, explaining why she viewed the policies of  supporting terrorists as a personal affront, “as someone who enlisted in the military specifically because of Al Qaeda’s terrorist attack on 9/11 and committing myself and my life to doing what I could to defeat these terrorists.”

“It was shocking and a betrayal to me and every person who was killed on 9/11, their families, and my brothers and sisters in uniform.” She continued, “When as a member of Congress, I learned about President Obama’s, dual programs that he had begun, really to overthrow the regime of Syria and being willing to, through the CIA’s Timber Sycamore program that has now been made public, of working with and arming and equipping Al Qaeda in an effort to overthrow that regime, starting yet another regime change war in the Middle East.”

Even though Gabbard’s answer invoked her patriotism and call to service, Kelly again attacked the former Congresswoman as parroting Russian and Iranian points. “My concern has to do with the tendency to repeat Russian and Syrian and even in some cases, I think we’ll get into in the closed session, Iranian information and to discount what comes from our intelligence community.”

Gabbard responded definitively, “Senator, every American deserves to know that people in our own government were providing support to our sworn enemy, Al Qaeda. That should not be acceptable by anyone. Thank you.”

While Kelly may argue that Gabbard was repeating Russian and Iranian statements on the matter, legendary American journalist Seymour Hersh reported on the CIA program in 2014. “The Obama administration has never publicly admitted to its role in creating what the CIA calls a ‘rat line,’ a back channel highway into Syria,” he wrote in the London Review of Books. “The rat line, authorized in early 2012, was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition. Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida.”

The CIA program to fund and arm opposition groups began in 2012 and culminated in the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December. Assad was removed from power by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. 

HTS is led by Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who recently declared himself President of Syria without holding elections. Julani was a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who was moved to join the terrorist group after seeing the results of the 9/11 attack on the US. 

At the time the Timber Sycamore program started, it was well known to the Obama administration that the opposition was mainly comprised of jihadist fighters. At the time, Jake Sullivan sent an email to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explaining, “AQ is on our side in Syria,” he wrote referring to al-Qaeda.