He Went To Syria With Tulsi Gabbard. He Has Some Big Concerns.

As executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit established to respond to attacks on civilians by former dictator Bashar al-Assad, Mouaz Moustafa has shared crucial information with the U.S. government about the war in Syria. But he isn’t sure he’d continue doing so if Tulsi Gabbard is confirmed as Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence. And it wouldn’t surprise him if U.S. allies around the world followed suit.

“If Tulsi Gabbard is running our intelligence services, France, UK, Australia… if I was them, I wouldn't share intelligence with us,” he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine.

Moustafa has spoken with Gabbard or been in meetings with her several times, and he was struck by Gabbard’s lack of outrage at Assad’s atrocities. He has talked about some of those meetings before, but he discussed these encounters in more detail in the interview.

Ultimately, he came away increasingly concerned that her aims and worldview were at odds with the U.S. mission in Syria and U.S. foreign policy more broadly. Gabbard is among Trump’s most controversial nominees, drawing criticism from Democrats and some conservatives for commentary that often echoes propaganda pushed by U.S. adversaries like Russia.

Alexa Henning, a Trump transition spokesperson, rejected Moustafa’s charges. Henning said Gabbard has referred to Assad as a “brutal dictator” and noted that families of hostages held by terrorists in Syria had written a letter supporting her nomination.

“Lt. Col. Gabbard’s views have been shaped by her military service and multiple deployments to war zones where she’s seen the cost of war and who ultimately pays the price,” Henning said. “She is 100 percent aligned with President Trump’s peace through strength, American First vision, which is why the American people overwhelmingly elected him president.”

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You have previously described how a high-level Syrian defector known as “Caesar” had to have his face concealed while briefing lawmakers because congressional aides were worried that Tulsi Gabbard might compromise his identity. What concerned you and others about Gabbard specifically when that happened, in the spring of 2018?

The first time I ran into Tulsi Gabbard was 2014; she hadn’t been a congresswoman for a year yet.

In 2014, she heard from this military photographer Caesar at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in front of reporters and cameras, where his face was shielded. She was surrounded by photos of people that were tortured to death in the most horrific ways.

All the members of the committee, Republicans and Democrats at the time, sent out statements of outrage afterward. That helped us begin our work on the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which later became law [and imposed sanctions on the Assad regime]. All of them except her. And I said to myself, “You know what? Maybe she's extremely misinformed. Maybe she is just ignorant about what’s happening. Maybe she needs to see people on her own.”

I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. So in 2015, a year after that hearing, I took her alongside other members of Congress to the Syria-Turkish border. She showed no remorse. She showed nothing but support for Assad.

She sat through a bunch of meetings, and she asked no questions and gave really no comments until we were at a displacement center, and I arranged for a situation where she was able to speak to someone alone. It wasn’t a big group of members hearing from someone. It was just a couple of little girls who were burned from head to toe, whose family was killed by Assad and Russian airstrikes.

I thought, “She can now hear from these little girls of what’s actually happening — that it’s Assad who was killing people and creating terrorism.” The little girl said, “We were burned from head to toe, and our families were killed by the Assad regime in Russian airplanes.”

Gabbard’s response was shocking, appalling. She said, “How do you know it was Assad and Russia, not ISIS?” Which is ludicrous. We know ISIS doesn't have airplanes. We know that these little girls have no reason to lie.

[Henning, the Trump transition spokesperson, called this account “100 percent false.”]

Then in 2017 — this blew my mind — she went to Syria without informing the U.S. government. She went with the help of these Assad regime tentacles in the United States, individuals that are tied to SSNP, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which is essentially the version of Nazis in Syria.

She went and was right away taken to Bashar al-Assad and took photos with him. It was well known that she was there with him. Imagine how those little girls must have felt.

And after that came the second hearing with Caesar in 2018, which was behind closed doors.

This next hearing wasn’t a full public hearing. We don't have media and random people from outside, and usually in this kind of meeting, we do not disguise people like Caesar when they meet with senior U.S. officials. We have no reason to think that those officials are traitors or to think that they support genocidal maniacs.

But [because Gabbard was in the room] we had to, number one, completely hide his identity, as if he’s in a public hearing. And number two, it wasn’t just my concern, it was Democratic staffers from her own party and a Republican staffer at the time who were coming up to us and saying, “We’ve got to make sure this lady doesn’t record his voice, doesn’t find out his name, because she’ll send it back to Assad and Putin.”

[“Tulsi Gabbard has served in the military for over two decades and possesses an active TS/SCI security clearance,” Henning said. “As someone who served for eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives and attended many classified briefings, there is zero evidence that confidentiality has ever been violated, this is another smear by anonymous officials with no proof.]

Your organization has shared information and intelligence with the U.S. government in the past. How would Gabbard affect the work that you and other organizations do if she were to become the director of national intelligence?

When Gabbard was originally named Trump’s nominee for DNI, my fear at the time was this person is going to come in and is going to paint all the Syrians as terrorists and paint Assad as this civilized democratic person, and that she would do all she could to ensure what Russia, Assad and Iran wanted in Syria happened. That was the concern.

But Assad quickly fell, and so that concern dissipated. But it’s not just about Syria and about our work. As an American citizen, it concerns me that someone who subscribes to the views and ideologies of America’s worst adversaries may be running our intelligence services. This is about real concern for the United States. It's real concern for the Five Eyes, the countries that share intelligence with us. If Tulsi Gabbard is running our intelligence services, France, UK, Australia, they would not — if I was them, I wouldn't share intelligence with us, knowing that it might end up in the wrong hands. As a matter of fact, I may even choose to share false intelligence knowing that it could get back to Putin.

The concern here is not about a single country or a single organization’s work. The concern here is about the United States and about someone who does not believe in the values or the worldview of the U.S.

This is someone who, without even questioning it, would take anything on [Russia-backed] RT and endorse it right away, and would take anything that’s being put up by Iran or Hezbollah and endorse it as facts. I know that because I’ve seen it for myself firsthand. Gabbard was someone who would say that the United States military is training ISIS in Syria. Someone who has served in our military like her — how can she ever make that horrific accusation? That is the regular line of Russia and Iran and Assad. Tulsi says that the rebels gas themselves so the world can invade and get rid of a democratic leader named Assad.

When she has a confirmation hearing, what do you think senators should ask her?

Number one, why did she, for so many years, defend the Assad regime? Why did she not trust the FBI-authenticated photographs of Caesar, who showed her what Assad does to civilians?

Why has she always been in line with Putin and Iran and Hezbollah’s views, not just on Syria but on Ukraine and other places? Why has she claimed that the United States military is training ISIS, when she serves in the military and knows that the U.S. military fights ISIS and doesn’t train them?

What does a DNI need to do, especially in the Middle East after Assad’s fall, but in general?

The DNI, right now, not just in the region, but throughout the world, needs to play an important role in pushing back against these authoritarian regimes, those people that are invading sovereign countries, such as Russia, regimes that are conducting attacks against U.S. military outposts, such as Iranian-backed militia groups, to ensure that in places like Syria and elsewhere, things are moving in a direction that allows for a pluralistic, democratic state.

But if you were to place Tulsi Gabbard in there, you're placing a wolf in the henhouse. You're placing someone who wants to see the exact opposite of DNI objectives as the head of DNI. And that will be disastrous for the Five Eyes. That will be a catastrophe for any country that shares information with us.