Tulsi Gabbard Caught Changing Testimony on Iran at Last Minute

On page six of her printed testimony for the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard wrote that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was “obliterated” last summer. This admission is a massive contradiction of one of the primary justifications of Trump’s deadly war on Iran—which might explain why Gabbard didn’t actually say it out loud.

Gabbard was questioned by Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who noted that he agreed with her former colleague Joe Kent, who resigned over his post as National Counterterrorism Center director because Iran was not an “imminent threat to our nation.”

“I guess what I’m concerned about, one thing is, even in your printed testimony today … in your last paragraph on page six [it] says, ‘As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts to try to rebuild their enrichment capability,’” Warner read. “You omitted that paragraph from your oral opening. Was that because the president said there was a imminent threat two weeks [ago]?”

“Sir, I recognized that the time was running long, and I skipped through some of the portions—”

“You chose to omit the parts that contradict the president,” Warner said, interrupting Gabbard before asking about what current intelligence said about the Strait of Hormuz.

Warner moved on from the question a bit too early, but the contradiction remains. U.S. war hawks of both parties have claimed that Iran is an imminent threat for decades, making it the very opposite of imminent. This war was triggered by Israeli aggression, not some incoming Iranian attack, as Marco Rubio and others within the Trump administration have made clear. Gabbard knows the truth, and she put it in writing. But she still didn’t have the guts to say it aloud.