Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard slammed the Democratic narrative that she is a puppet for U.S. and world leaders, saying she is loyal to only God, the Constitution and her own conscience in her opening remarks before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. 

‘Before I close, I want to warn the American people who are watching at home. You may hear lies and smears in this hearing that will challenge my loyalty to and my love for our country,’ Gabbard said.

‘Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience and the Constitution of the United States. Accusing me of being Trump’s puppet, Putin’s puppet, Assad’s puppet, a guru’s puppet, Modi’s puppet, not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters,’ she continued. 

Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday as part of her confirmation process to serve as director of national intelligence during President Donald Trump’s second term. 

‘The same tactic was used against President Trump and failed,’ she continued of the accusations against her. 

‘The American people elected President Trump with a decisive victory and mandate for change. The fact is, what truly unsettles my political opponents, is I refuse to be their puppet. I have no love for Assad or Gadhafi or any dictator. I just hate al Qaeda. I hate that we have leaders who cozy up to Islamist extremists, minimizing them to so-called rebels.’

Gabbard was elected to the U.S. House representing Hawaii during the 2012 election cycle, serving as a Democrat until 2021. She did not seek re-election to that office after throwing her hat in the 2020 White House race. 

Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022, registering as an independent, before becoming a member of the GOP this year and offering her full endorsement of Trump amid his presidential campaign before Trump named her his DNI pick. 

‘If confirmed as director of national intelligence, I will continue to live by the oath that I have sworn at least eight times in my life, both in uniform, as and as a member of Congress. I will support and defend our God-given freedoms enshrined in the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same,’ she said. 

President Donald Trump’s FBI director nominee Kash Patel was grilled Thursday over the FBI’s investigation into alleged Trump-Russia connections in the aftermath of the 2016 election, known colloquially by its nickname ‘Crossfire Hurricane,’ and which has emerged as something of a partisan lightning rod in the years since the investigation was closed.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for his part, used most of his allotted time Thursday to grill Patel over his views on the investigation, which he has railed against as politically motivated and a ‘disgusting’ use of FBI resources.

Patel was tapped in 2017 by then-House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes to join the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe – an investigation that was widely praised by Republicans as helping discredit the FBI’s inquest.

‘Is it fair to say that the people in charge of investigating Crossfire Hurricane hated Trump’s guts?’ Graham asked Patel on Thursday during his confirmation hearing.

‘Yes, sir,’ Patel responded.

Graham added, ‘Do you believe that Crossfire Hurricane was one of the most disgusting episodes in FBI history of a corrupt investigation led by corrupt people who wanted to take Donald Trump down?’ 

After Patel responded affirmatively, Graham continued to excoriate what he sees as the politicization of the FBI, which he claimed is ‘ignoring evidence, making up evidence, and lying to get Donald Trump.’

FBI agents were telling anybody and everybody would listen that [the investigation] is not reliable, this is not trustworthy. But they plowed on,’ Graham added. 

‘That’s why you’re in this chair today to fix that,’ said Graham. ‘Without Crossfire Hurricane, this guy wouldn’t be here.’

Patel is a close ally of President Trump and served in the first Trump administration both as a deputy assistant and as the senior director for counterterrorism. 

His nomination has sparked early criticism from some Democrats ahead of his confirmation hearing, who have cited his previous vows to prosecute journalists and career officials at the Justice Department and FBI that he sees as being part of the ‘deep state.’

He has since attempted to clarify some of those remarks.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, grilled President Donald Trump’s DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard over her previous remarks praising whistleblower Edward Snowden. 

‘Until you are nominated by the president to be the DNI, you consistently praised the actions of Edward Snowden, someone, I believe, jeopardized the security of our nation and then, to flaunt that, fled to Russia,’ Warner asked of Gabbard on Thursday morning. 

‘You even called Edward Snowden and I quote here, ‘a brave whistleblower.’ Every member of this committee supports the rights of legal whistleblowers. But Edward Snowden isn’t a whistleblower, and in this case, I’m a lot closer to the chairman’s words where he said Snowden is, quote, ‘an egotistical serial liar and traitor’ who, quote, ‘deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his life.’ Ms. Gabbard is simple, yes or no question. Do you still think Edward Snowden is brave?’

Gabbard pushed back that Snowden ‘broke the law’ and does not agree with his leak of intelligence.

‘Mr. Vice Chairman, Edward Snowden broke the law. I do not agree with or support with all of the information and intelligence that he released, nor the way in which he did it. There would have been opportunities for him to come to you on this committee, or seek out the IG to release that information. The fact is, he also, even as he broke the law, released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs that are happening within our government,’ Gabbard responded. 

In 2013, Snowden was working as an IT contractor for the National Security Agency when he traveled to Hong Kong to meet with three journalists and transferred to them thousands of pages of classified documents about the U.S. government’s surveillance of its citizens. 

‘I’m making myself very clear. Edward Snowden broke the law. He released information about the United States government,’ Gabbard continued as she defended her position. 

‘If I may just finish my thoughts, Senator,’ Gabbard continued, as Warner spoke over her. ‘In this role that I’ve been nominated for, if confirmed as director of national intelligence, I will be responsible for protecting our nation’s secrets. And I have four immediate steps that I would take to prevent another Snowden-like leak.’

Gabbard has previously lauded Snowden, including during an appearance on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast in 2019. 

‘If it wasn’t for Snowden, the American people would never have learned the NSA was collecting phone records and spying on Americans,’ she said on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast at the time.

Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday morning as part of her confirmation process to serve as the second Trump administration’s director of national intelligence. 

Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report. 

The Senate is set for a Thursday confirmation vote for President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. 

The upper chamber voted to advance Burgum’s nomination to a confirmation vote on Wednesday by a 78–20 margin. 

Burgum appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in mid-January, where he told lawmakers that national security issues and the economy were his top two priorities for leading the agency. 

‘When energy production is restricted in America, it doesn’t reduce demand,’ Burgum said in his opening statement Jan. 16. ‘It just shifts production to countries like Russia and Iran, whose autocratic leaders not only don’t care at all about the environment, but they use their revenues from energy sales to fund wars against us and our allies.’

Lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, questioned Burgum on whether he would seek to drill for oil in national parks if Trump asked him to.

‘As part of my sworn duty, I’ll follow the law and follow the Constitution. And so you can count on that,’ Burgum said. ‘And I have not heard of anything about President Trump wanting to do anything other than advancing energy production for the benefit of the American people.’

Burgum served as governor of North Dakota from 2016 to 2024. He also launched a presidential bid for the 2024 election in June 2023, where energy and natural resources served as key issues during his campaign.

Burgum appeared during the first two Republican presidential debates, but didn’t qualify for the third and ended his campaign in December 2023. He then endorsed Trump for the GOP nomination a month later ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

Aubrie Spady, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

House Republican leadership is encouraging lawmakers to back up President Donald Trump’s desire to return the Panama Canal to U.S. ownership, a new memo suggests.

The House GOP Policy Committee, led by Chairman Kevin Hern, R-Okla., the No. 5 House Republican leader, sent the document to legislative directors across the conference on Wednesday.

The two-page memo, simply titled ‘Panama Canal,’ begins by highlighting Trump’s past comments about China’s influence over the Panama Canal and his goal of ‘taking it back.’ 

It also noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be visiting Panama on his first trip as Trump’s top diplomat.

The memo starts with details of the history of the U.S. and the Panama Canal. ‘The Panama Canal was built by the U.S. between 1904 and 1914. The canal was leased to the U.S. for nearly 75 years under the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 which established the Panama Canal Zone and the subsequent construction of the Panama Canal.’

It also points out that it was under the late former President Jimmy Carter that Panama was given control of the canal, via treaties later criticized by Trump.

The treaties with Carter ‘gave the U.S. the permanent explicit right to intervene to keep the canal open in the event of any threat that may interfere with the canal’s continued neutral service to ships from all nations,’ the memo said before laying out arguments for why Republicans believe Panama has since violated its end of the deal.

‘About 5% of global maritime traffic passes through the Panama Canal, saving 6,835 miles off a journey that would otherwise require a long and dangerous trip skirting the southern tip of South America,’ the memo states. ‘The United States is Panama’s largest provider of foreign direct investment—$3.8 billion annually.’

Meanwhile, ‘Chinese companies now operate ports at both ends of the canal. Chinese construction companies in 2018 funded a $1.4 billion bridge project spanning the canal,’ it reads.

‘The treaties require that transit fees be ‘just, reasonable, equitable, and consistent with international law,’’ and that Panama maintain the canal’s permanent neutrality,’ the memo said. ‘The high fees charged by Panama as well as Panama’s openness to investment by the Chinese Communist Party in the canal zone are likely both in breach of the terms of the treaties.’

Congress has already granted the president wide authority over international commerce in the event of an emergency, but GOP lawmakers have signaled they want to ease those guardrails further.

Main Street Caucus Chairman Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., introduced a bill earlier this month to let Trump re-purchase the Panama Canal for the U.S. A short while later, freshman Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., unveiled legislation to widen Trump’s non-emergency tariff power.

Additionally, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., has a bill to authorize Trump to enter into negotiations to buy Greenland.

The memo from Hern’s policy committee is notable, however, as an apparent subtle marching order to the House GOP conference to continue down that path.

It could also likely embolden Republican lawmakers to find legislative avenues to further back up Trump’s push to purchase the canal, particularly given the Panamanian government’s opposition to the U.S. president’s plan.