Former national security adviser John Bolton said Wednesday that former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)—President-elect Trump’s nominees for director of national intelligence (DNI) and attorney general, respectively— should not appear for their Senate confirmation hearings until they are investigated by the FBI.
In an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill,” Bolton said the formal probes would send a message to China that the U.S. is serious about its national security.
“I don’t think either she or Matt Gaetz ought to have a confirmation hearing until they have both had full field FBI investigations,” Bolton told anchor Blake Burman. “And then I think the Chinese would say, ‘Maybe they are serious.’”
When Burman clarified, asking whether Bolton was calling for Gabbard to be investigated, Bolton said, “I think so,” adding, “Given the Russian propaganda that she has espoused over the past period of time, I think she’s a serious threat to our national security.”
In the interview, Bolton heavily criticized Trump’s choices for the positions, calling Gabbard and Gaetz the two worst cabinet appointments in recent history.
“With his announcement of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence, he’s sending a signal that we have lost our mind when it comes to collecting intelligence,” Bolton said when asked about the message he thinks Trump is trying to send to China.
“Up until a few hours ago, I would have said that was the worst cabinet appointment in recent American history. Of course, since Matt Gaetz’s nomination, he clearly has taken the lead on that score.”
Bolton expressed concern about the message that Gabbard’s nomination sends to China.
“It’s not an indication that the administration is serious about one of the most important aspects of dealing with a threat like China, which is intelligence,” he said.
Bolton recalled an interview Gabbard gave in January 2020 after Congress was briefed on the Trump-directed assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force.
According to Bolton, Gabbard said in the 2020 interview that she was “concerned about the illegal and unconstitutional act of war that had been carried out under President Trump’s orders.”
Bolton asked: “So that’s the kind of person that we’re going to put in charge of our overall intelligence community?”
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