Why Snowden – not Russia or Syria – could tank Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination

Trump's pick to lead national intelligence has upset foreign policy hawks by not condemning the NSA whistleblower

A smooth path to the pinnacle of America's intelligence pyramid was never in the cards for Tulsi Gabbard.

Dogged by a catalogue of eyebrow-raising past statements about Russia, Ukraine and Bashar al-Assad, accusations of parroting Kremlin talking points, and a lack of experience in intelligence (not even having sat on a relevant congressional committee), Gabbard was always a counterintuitive choice to sit atop the 18 US spy agencies and their roughly 70,000 employees.