The tragic plane crash in the Potomac River understandably sidelined coverage of Thursday’s congressional confirmation hearings on the major networks, but that evening’s PBS News Hour ran full stories on the hearings for Kash Patel to head the FBI, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (a former Democrat congresswoman from Hawaii) for Director of National Intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services.
All suffered bruising and sometimes bipartisan criticism, and the coverage was deeply unfavorable to all three nominees. Reporter Laura Barron-Lopez mocked Patel’s supposed conspiracy theory about a “deep state” in Washington out to get Donald Trump. Imagine that!
But Gabbard perhaps got the worst of it, with tough questioning about past comments on Syrian dictator Assad and especially her support of classified document leaker Edward Snowden, now in exile in Putin’s Russia, as a government “whistleblower.” PBS reporter Nick Schifrin eagerly emphasized senators calling Snowden a "traitor" during Gabbard's confirmation hearing, painting Snowden as a thorn in a Trump nominee’s side.
Nick Schifrin: Edward Snowden was a National Security Agency contractor who leaked more than a million classified documents. In 2020, Tulsi Gabbard wanted him pardoned.
Archive clip, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI): I have introduced legislation to stand up for and to protect brave whistle-blowers.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA): Do you still think Edward Snowden is brave?
Schifrin: Today, Gabbard's past comments drew bipartisan concern, beginning with Vice Chairman Virginia Democrat Mark Warner.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford was shown calling Snowden a traitor for releasing American secrets and fleeing to China and finally Russia, as did Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennett.
Schifrin concluded of Gabbard, “her supporters proudly call her unconventional, while, to her critics, she's dangerous.”
After Schifrin’s segment, co-anchor Amna Nawaz asked Jamil Jaffer, executive director of National Security Institute at George Mason University, if “the comments about Snowden…sound alarm bells within the intelligence community?"
Which makes PBS News Hour's previous swaddling of Snowden as a liberal whistleblower against the American surveillance state all the more odd. Was PBS "dangerous" when they were more supportive of this man?
In February 2015, then-co-anchor Judy Woodruff teased “an intimate look at Edward Snowden with the journalists behind the Oscar-nominated documentary Citizenfour, which takes viewers inside the first days of one of the biggest intelligence leaks in U.S. history.”
News Hour contributor Jeffrey Brown certainly didn’t make Snowden sound like a confirmed traitor:
Jeffrey Brown: “The documentary Citizenfour brings us into a Hong Kong hotel room as former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden reveals secrets that would make for blockbuster headlines beginning in June 2013: the large-scale collection of phone and Internet data by the U.S. government….For some, Snowden was a free speech hero. In the film, he explains his decision to eventually make his identity known.….But others, including President Obama, called on Snowden to come back to the U.S. and face charges for espionage.
Neither did then-News Hour co-anchor Gwen Ifill. In June 2013, Ifill teased a segment: "So, is Edward Snowden himself a hero or a turncoat? We will debate that later in the broadcast." Later she used the same formulation: "So, [journalist] James Bamford, is Edward Snowden a leaker or a whistleblower?"
In August 2014, Snowden was embraced no less eagerly by Ifill, again accompanied by sympathetic journalist Bamford.
Ifill: Edward Snowden has more secrets to tell and shares them with "Wired" magazine. We talk to the journalist who spent three days with the NSA leaker in Moscow….James Bamford, you say in your piece that you feel like you have a kinship with Edward Snowden. Why did he talk to you?
These hypocritical Snowden-related stories were brought to you in part by Cunard.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS News Hour
1/30/25
Nick Schifrin: Today, in the Senate Intelligence Committee, the name used more than any other was not the woman nominated to lead the intelligence community, but the man responsible for its largest breach.
Edward Snowden was a National Security Agency contractor who leaked more than a million classified documents. In 2020, Tulsi Gabbard wanted him pardoned.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI): I have introduced legislation to stand up for and to protect brave whistle-blowers.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA): Do you still think Edward Snowden is brave?
Nick Schifrin: Today, Gabbard's past comments drew bipartisan concern, beginning with Vice Chairman Virginia Democrat Mark Warner.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: Edward Snowden broke the law. I do not agree with or support with all of the information and intelligence that he released, nor the way in which he did it.
Nick Schifrin: Oklahoma Republican James Lankford:
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK): Was he a traitor at the time when he took America's secrets, released them in public, and then ran to China and became a Russian citizen?
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: Senator, I'm focused on the future and how we can prevent something like this from happening again.
Nick Schifrin: Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet:
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO): Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America? That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: Senator, as someone who has served in uniform…
Sen. Michael Bennet: Is your answer yes or no, is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America? I go on to my questions.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: As someone who has worn our uniform in combat. I understand how critical our national security is.
Sen. Michael Bennet: Apparently, you don't.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: This is about regime change in Russia.
Nick Schifrin: Senators also questioned Gabbard's judgment on Russia and the war in Ukraine.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: The United States and some of these European NATO countries are fueling this war.
Nick Schifrin: Which she's blamed in part on the U.S.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM): who's responsible for the war in Ukraine?
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: Putin started the war in Ukraine.
Nick Schifrin: That conversion doubted by Kansas Republican Jerry Moran.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS): I want to make certain that in no way does Russia get a pass in either your mind or your heart or in any policy recommendation you would make or not make.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: Senator, I'm offended by the question, because my sole focus, commitment and responsibility is about our own nation, our own security and the interests of the American people.
Nick Schifrin: Senators also expressed skepticism in her conversion to supporter of warrantless surveillance, which she used to oppose.
Sen. Mark Warner: I don't find your change of heart credible.
Nick Schifrin: And on Syria.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: The fact is that the United States has been waging this war, this regime change war now.
Nick Schifrin: Gabbard visited in 2017 and dismissed U.S. and U.N. conclusions that Assad launched a chemical weapons attack in April 2017.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: And that evidence was never presented, and it's very clear now as time has gone on that there was a cover-up.
Nick Schifrin: Today, for the first time, Gabbard said she pushed Assad on chemical weapons.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: I asked him tough questions about his own regime's actions, the use of chemical weapons and the brutal tactics that were being used against his own people.
Nick Schifrin: But Democrats fear Gabbard's prior positions could prevent allies from sharing intelligence.
Sen. Mark Warner: I just don't believe on your judgment and credibility issues that this is the appropriate role that you should take going forward.
Nick Schifrin: Gabbard was elected to Hawaii's legislature in 2002 at the age of 21 as a Democrat. She served in Congress for eight years, deployed twice to the Middle East, and is a serving lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve.
But she became a Republican and endorsed Donald Trump over their shared questioning of the intelligence community.
Fmr. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: The American people elected Donald Trump as their president not once, but twice. And yet the FBI and intelligence agencies were politicized by his opponents to undermine his presidency and falsely portray him as a puppet of Putin.
Nick Schifrin: With that charge, her supporters proudly call her unconventional, while, to her critics, she's dangerous.
