First Draft: Has a Far-Right, Islamophobic Cult Leader Been 'Controlling' Former Intel Chief Tulsi Gabbard All These Years?
The Washington Post published an alarming report about the power behind Gabbard’s rise to political prominence and a key Trump Cabinet position. Plus: in Switzerland, Iran kept JD Vance waiting.
🚨 BREAKING: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigned today, saying he would stay till September, as Manchester mayor turned Labour Party MP Andy Burnham seemed set to take over. Donald Trump honored Starmer with a rude post.
Good morning, and happy Monday to all. Martin here, having conquered the urge to go down the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool and get myself a curl of blue paint, peeled from the bottom thanks to algae or hydrogen peroxide or both, to frame over my desk as a memento of Donald Trump’s Washington. Turns out I might’ve been arrested, held for five hours, and charged, as a former Olympic canoeist was on Friday, for simply touching such paint. Really.
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we consider another bizarre tale of DC under The Donald: an extraordinary Washington Post report about how Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence until last week, relied heavily on advice and instruction from a cult leader in her native Hawaii. We also look to Switzerland, where JD Vance was left flailing by yet more Trumpian insanity over war or peace with Iran. Here, as they say, we go.
Gabbard and the Guru
The Washington Post may be reduced under Jeff Bezos, who we now know trashed his staff while sucking up to Donald Trump, but it can still produce remarkable work. Sunday brought an epic: “Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career.”
Reporter Jon Swaine tells us that in a bizarre career that has swerved from social conservatism in Hawaii to progressivism in Congress, from presidential outsider to alleged “Russian asset” to MAGA turncoat and failed director of national intelligence, Gabbard took extensive direction and instruction from a Hindu cult leader.
Read that again: the official who, until last week, oversaw all U.S. intelligence work, who inserted herself in efforts to boost fake allegations of election fraud and perhaps rig the midterms, took instruction and direction from a Hindu cult leader.
Now imagine that the cult leader did not lead a “breakaway Hare Krishna group.” Imagine the cult leader was Muslim.
Would the story have stayed untold so long? Would what was known have been brushed aside by Trump’s Republicans when Gabbard was confirmed?
It seems sure it would not.
According to Swaine, a former Gabbard aide contacted him to say she worked for Chris Butler, “the eccentric religious leader Gabbard once described as her guru,” head of Science of Identity Foundation, a group based in Hawaii.
Butler, 78, and Gabbard, 45, have denied a mentor-pupil relationship. But the source, Rebecca Saltzburg, provided hundreds of emails.