Scoop: Democrats' attacks on Tulsi Gabbard undermine Barack Obama's legacy

Democrats' criticisms of Tulsi Gabbard are proving awkward for James Clapper and Ben Rhodes.

Democrats’ leading argument against Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI) pick, is that she is sympathetic to Syria’s now-deposed dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in part because she questioned whether he had used chemical weapons against his own people.

However, many in the Obama administration did just that, including his then-DNI, James Clapper. In 2016, Politico reported that “Director of National Intelligence James Clapper interrupted the president's daily briefing to tell him that the intelligence on Syria's use of sarin gas was “not a slam dunk.’”

President Barack Obama infamously said that Assad using chemical weapons against his own people in Syria would be a “red line” for America; Obama’s administration did nothing — an (in)action that many believe paved the way for much of the chaos currently embroiling the region.

The Washington Reporter previously published an in-depth fact-check on many of the attacks facing Gabbard as she awaits confirmation. Gabbard’s skepticism of Obama-era intel puts her on par with another so-called luminary of the era, Ben Rhodes, the former Deputy National Security Advisor of the United States.

In his memoir, Rhodes — a former creative writing expert who bragged about creating the Washington, D.C. echo chamber that facilitated the Iran Deal — said that he “understood that Clapper was protecting the intelligence community from a repeat of the role it played before the war in Iraq.”

“Apparently it’s okay when Obama lackeys questions intel but not Tulsi,” a source familiar with her confirmation observed to the Reporter.