If any whistleblowers were considering leaking documents that expose malfeasance by the Trump administration, they can’t be blamed for thinking twice after Thursday’s confirmation hearing for Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard.
It’s been nearly 12 years since Edward Snowden and journalists at The Guardian and The Washington Post exposed the National Security Agency’s illegal mass surveillance of Americans. Watching Thursday’s hearing, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s been 12 minutes.
Over and over and over for nearly three hours, instead of focusing on the plenty of legitimate reasons to be skeptical of Gabbard’s nomination, senators interrogated her about Snowden (who is a member of our board of directors) and his decade-plus-old leaks. When they weren’t grilling her about Snowden, they demanded she explain her recently rescinded opposition to Section 702 of FISA, as though it’s scandalous to have once questioned domestic spying powers that a court found unconstitutional just last week.
Did they ask Gabbard how she would ensure intelligence agencies follow the Constitution and the law when it comes to surveillance? No. Did they question her about whether she believed it’s appropriate for the government to mislead the Supreme Court about its surveillance practices? Nope. Maybe they asked if she would promise not to lie to Congress when asked about the NSA collecting data on Americans? Wrong again!
Instead, senators were laser focused on demanding that Gabbard label Snowden a “traitor.” They never specified what sort of treason they believe he engaged in by working with award-winning journalists to tell Americans their government was illegally spying on them. Nor did they show any curiosity whatsoever about how Gabbard would limit the illegality that future “traitors” might expose.
A dangerous time for Democrats to attack whistleblowers
In addition to repeated questioning about Snowden by Republican senators, Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Michael Bennet homed in on Gabbard’s position on Snowden.
“Do you believe, as the chairman of this committee believes, as the vast majority of members of our intelligence agencies believe, that Edward Snowden was a traitor to America?” asked Bennet, ignoring the fact that most Americans, no matter their party, gender, income, education, age, and income, considered Snowden a whistleblower shortly after his revelations.
Bennet then spun into an outraged rant after Gabbard refused to answer with a simple “yes or no.” “This is not a moment for social media,” he declared, then launching into a performance clearly designed to go viral on social media. By Thursday night, he’d posted a clip of his repeated badgering of Gabbard about Snowden to his account on the social platform X.
Meanwhile, Warner spent his questioning time proclaiming that Snowden “isn’t a whistleblower” and deserves to “rot in jail.” He asked Gabbard if she stood by her comments calling Snowden a “brave whistleblower” and then talked over her as she tried to answer the question.
It’s long been a national embarrassment that Congress is more interested in punishing those who expose wrongdoing than it is in fixing it. They’re not mad at Snowden for harming America, they’re mad at him for interfering with their illegal spying program.
Now, Democratic senators have added treason charges, which are punishable by death in America, to the list of things that whistleblowers will have to worry about under the Trump administration.
But for Democratic senators, in particular, to be attacking whistleblowing at this moment in time is not just embarrassing. It’s downright dangerous.
Democratic senators are sitting idly by as President Donald Trump issues wildly illegal orders and dismantles internal whistleblowing mechanisms left and right. More and more information is classified, often to protect the government from embarrassment. Will Democrats be so quick to condemn people for leaking information to the press and the public about crimes and wrongdoing by the Trump administration?
Or maybe they won’t have to condemn leakers during the Trump years because fewer will come forward, thanks to Democrats’ reckless comments about Snowden and insistence that internal whistleblowing is the only acceptable path, even as Trump dismantles the systems that enable it. People will surely think twice about revealing information over the next four years when even the Democrats in Congress are sending the message that they don’t support whistleblowers.
After all, whistleblowers who give national defense information to the press already face extremely high risks of prosecution under the Espionage Act, a broken law that, despite its name, has often been used to punish conduct that has nothing to do with spying.
Under the Espionage Act, whistleblowing and treason are treated the same — there is no opportunity for a leaker to explain that they leaked documents out of conscience and not to aid America’s enemies. That means while Snowden has to listen to grandstanding senators call him a traitor in the court of public opinion, he’d never have the opportunity to explain why he’s not one to a court of law.
Some lawmakers — including Gabbard when she was in Congress — have suggested reforming the law to limit it to actual espionage. Sen. Susan Collins — supposedly one of the “moderate” Republicans willing to rein in Trump — attacked Gabbard for that position during her confirmation hearing as well.
Now, Democratic senators have added treason charges, which are punishable by death in America, to the list of things that whistleblowers will have to worry about under the Trump administration. Well done.
