{"id":6888,"date":"2026-03-18T23:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T23:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/6888\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T23:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T23:16:11","slug":"gabbard-deflects-when-asked-about-intel-she-offered-trump-before-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/6888\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabbard deflects when asked about intel she offered Trump before Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The U.S. government\u2019s top intelligence official told lawmakers Wednesday that Iran\u2019s regime<\/a> \u201cappears to be intact but largely degraded\u201d yet repeatedly dodged questions about whether President Donald Trump had been warned about the fallout from the weeks-old war, including Iran\u2019s attacks on Gulf nations and its effective closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tulsi Gabbard<\/a>, the director of national intelligence, also stated in prepared remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee that U.S. attacks on Iran last year had \u201cobliterated\u201d Iran\u2019s nuclear program and that there had been no effort since then to rebuild that capability. <\/p>\n

The statement was notable given Trump\u2019s repeated assertions that a war with Iran was necessary to head off what he said was an imminent threat from the Islamic Republic. Gabbard pointedly said that conclusion was the president\u2019s alone to draw as she declined to directly answer whether the intelligence community had likewise assessed that Iran\u2019s nuclear system presented an imminent risk to the United States.<\/p>\n

Watch live the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\"Attorney<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Georgia<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not the intelligence community\u2019s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,\u201d she said at one point.<\/p>\n

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\"From<\/p>\n

From left, FBI Director Kash Patel, Defense Intelligence Agency Director James Adams III, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Acting Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command William Hartman, listen during the Senate Committee on Intelligence hearings to examine worldwide threats on Capitol Hill Wednesday, March 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)<\/p>\n

From left, FBI Director Kash Patel, Defense Intelligence Agency Director James Adams III, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Acting Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command William Hartman, listen during the Senate Committee on Intelligence hearings to examine worldwide threats on Capitol Hill Wednesday, March 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)<\/p>\n

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Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia shot back: \u201cIt is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States.\u201d <\/p>\n

The testimony came at the first of two congressional hearings held each year to offer the public a glimpse into the largely secret operations of the government\u2019s intelligence agencies and the threats they confront. <\/p>\n

The hearings this week take place at a time of scrutiny over the war with Iran and heightened concerns about terrorism at home after recent attacks at a Michigan synagogue and a Virginia university. Wednesday\u2019s hearing also came a day after the resignation of Joe Kent<\/a> as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Kent said he could not \u201cin good conscience\u201d back the war and did not agree that Iran posed an imminent threat.<\/p>\n

But the hours-long hearing offered few revelations from Gabbard, who repeatedly declined to discuss conversations with Trump, or other senior intelligence officials who testified.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very disappointed,\u201d said an exasperated Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. \u201cIt\u2019s the only one time of year the public gets to hear from you guys in this kind of setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabbard deflected questions about intelligence given to Trump<\/p>\n

A frequent line of questioning for Democrats: What intelligence, if any, had been given to Trump about the war\u2019s potential consequences? Trump, for instance, has said he was surprised<\/a> that Iran responded to strikes from the United States by attacking Arab nations and has been contending with the economic impact of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a body of water connecting the Persian Gulf to the world\u2019s oceans and a vital passageway for oil and gas.<\/p>\n

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\"CIA<\/p>\n

CIA Director John Ratcliffe testifies during the Senate Committee on Intelligence hearings on Capitol Hill Wednesday, March 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)<\/p>\n

CIA Director John Ratcliffe testifies during the Senate Committee on Intelligence hearings on Capitol Hill Wednesday, March 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)<\/p>\n

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X that Trump was \u201cfully briefed\u201d on the possibility of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz and that the Pentagon has been planning for the possibility of Iran closing it \u201cfor DECADES.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s plan to secure the waterway is unclear, especially after he said this week<\/a> that NATO and most other allies had rejected his calls to help secure it. Iran has said the strait is open except to the U.S. and its allies.<\/p>\n

Democrats got few direct answers when they pressed administration officials on what Trump understood about that possibility, with Gabbard saying she would not divulge her conversations with him and CIA Director John Ratcliffe observing that he had been in countless briefings with the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to figure out if the president knew what the downside was of the Strait of Hormuz being closed,\u201d said Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat. \u201cDid he know this was going to happen or did he just disregard it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabbard appeared to try to thread a needle between emphasizing the intelligence community\u2019s views of Iran\u2019s risks \u2014 she said, for instance, that internal tensions would continue to increase even if the regime\u2019s leadership remained intact \u2014 and not completely echoing the president\u2019s arguments of an imminent threat.<\/p>\n

At one point, Warner noted that Gabbard, in her prepared written statement submitted to the committee, said Iran\u2019s nuclear enrichment program had been obliterated in strikes last year, but her opening remarks on Wednesday did not use that language. <\/p>\n

He asked whether she had omitted that reference to conform to Trump\u2019s claims of an imminent threat. Gabbard insisted that she had skipped some of her written statement in the interest of time.<\/p>\n

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\"FBI<\/p>\n

FBI Director Kash Patel listens during the Senate Committee on Intelligence hearings on Capitol Hill Wednesday, March 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)<\/p>\n

FBI Director Kash Patel listens during the Senate Committee on Intelligence hearings on Capitol Hill Wednesday, March 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)<\/p>\n

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Trump has sought to distance himself from Kent. Ratcliffe tried to do the same Wednesday when he was asked whether intelligence supported Kent\u2019s assessment that Iran was not an imminent threat. \u201cThe intelligence reflects the contrary,\u201d Ratcliffe said.<\/p>\n

Questions about other attacks and Gabbard\u2019s presence at an FBI search<\/p>\n

Gabbard and Ratcliffe fielded the majority of questions, but other witnesses included the heads of the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as FBI Director Kash Patel, who was pressed about the terrorism threat amid a spate of attacks this month. Those include a man with a past terrorism conviction who opened fire inside an Old Dominion University classroom<\/a> in Virginia and a Lebanese-born man in Michigan<\/a> who drove his car into a synagogue.<\/p>\n

One subject that did not receive attention: a deadly missile strike on an elementary school in Iran,<\/a> which people familiar with the matter have said the U.S. likely carried out as a result of outdated intelligence.<\/p>\n

Apart from Iran, Gabbard was pressed on her presence at an FBI search in January<\/a> of the main election hub in Fulton County, Georgia, where agents seized voter data related to the 2020 presidential election. Her appearance at a domestic law enforcement operation raised eyebrows given that Gabbard\u2019s office is meant to focus squarely on foreign threats.<\/p>\n

Warner described her appearance there as part of an \u201corganized effort to misuse her national security powers to interfere in domestic politics and potentially provide a pretext for the president\u2019s unconstitutional efforts to seize control of the upcoming elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabbard responded that she was present for the search at the request of the president but did not participate, though she later said she helped to oversee it. <\/p>\n

The House Intelligence Committee will hold its own threats hearing on Thursday.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Mike Catalini, Ben Finley and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The U.S. government\u2019s top intelligence official told lawmakers Wednesday that Iran\u2019s regime \u201cappears to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[432,351,38,286,274,50,8,19,103,96,5287,5549,839,3507,3206,5550,1256,2097,9,67,1827,7,5548,363,54,13,100,477,921,69,106],"class_list":{"0":"post-6888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-congress","9":"tag-diplomacy","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-energy-industry","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-iran-government","17":"tag-iran-war","18":"tag-joe-kent","19":"tag-john-ratcliffe","20":"tag-karoline-leavitt","21":"tag-kash-patel","22":"tag-mark-kelly","23":"tag-mark-warner","24":"tag-new-york","25":"tag-new-york-city","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-terrorism","29":"tag-top-stories","30":"tag-tulsi-gabbard","31":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","32":"tag-u-s-news","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-united-states-government","35":"tag-united-states-house-of-representatives","36":"tag-virginia","37":"tag-washington-news","38":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}