On June 19, Tulsi Gabbard resigned from her position as Director of National Intelligence. Once a rising star in American politics (Hawaii’s youngest member of parliament and the first Hindu woman in Congress), she is not remembered for anything special at the top of the secret service, except perhaps for her campaign against political opponents of Donald Trump. But this did not help Gabbard enter the president’s inner circle, and she resigned after 15 months. After her departure, the Washington Post published an investigation that Gabbard, already a well-known politician, may have remained under the influence of the leader of the religious movement in which she grew up. We’ll tell you what we know about him.
Gabbard grew up in Chris Butler’s Hare Krishna community. She became perhaps his most successful follower
Tulsi Gabbard was born in American Samoa, a US territory in the South Pacific. At the age of two, she moved with her parents to Hawaii. Her father and mother were students of local Hare Krishna guru Chris Butler. In the 1970s, he founded the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), a religious organization whose followers worship Krishna as the supreme god and practice yoga, meditation, and vegetarianism. Some former members have described Butler’s community as a cult, but the group itself has denied this.
Butler was interested in politics. He said incompetent officials should be replaced by “holy men,” and his followers—including Gabbard’s parents—were active in Hawaiian politics. However, the teacher’s views were eclectic: he opposed Muslims, gays, gun control and public schools, but also promoted anti-capitalism and the environmental agenda.
21-year-old Tulsi Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii Parliament in 2002 – and became smaller Its representative in history. She later joined the National Guard and served two tours in the Middle East. In 2012, Gabbard became the first Samoan-American woman and the first Hindu woman to serve in Congress from Hawaii. She takes an oath bring On the Bhagavad Gita, one of the sacred texts of Hinduism.
Gabbard soon became Vice Chair of the Democratic Party, but her rhetoric often ran counter to the party line. In 2016, she supported left-wing politician Bernie Sanders in the presidential elections, and in 2020 she tried to run for president herself, but she… It wasn’t enough supports. The following year, Gabbard left Congress and began to publicly criticize Democrats: she spoke out against the American and called her former comrades “warmongers.” When Russia attacks Ukraine in 2022, Gabbard maleAnd that the war would not have happened if Joe Biden had acknowledged Moscow’s “legitimate concerns” about Ukraine joining NATO.
Gabbard tried hard to win over Trump. But it seems that their relationship was spoiled by the American war with Iran
In 2024, Gabbard joined the Republicans (she officially left the Democrats two years ago). The announcement came during a campaign rally for Donald Trump. After returning to the White House, Gabbard was appointed Chief of National Intelligence. this annoyed Intelligence Community: Gabbard He was coming To become one of Trump’s closest advisors and supervise the work of 18 US intelligence agencies – including the FBI and the CIA – even though she has no experience in this field.
Intelligence Chief Gabbard I remembered Mainly politically charged initiatives: are Fired officials who could thwart Trump’s plans to mass deport immigrants; organized an inspection of a Georgia election center to investigate possible irregularities in the 2020 presidential election (which Trump claims was stolen from him); unacceptable The results of an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election said it was a “treasonous plot” by Barack Obama against Trump.
Despite all this, Gabbard failed to enter Trump’s inner circle. The main reason was their different views on wars abroad. This first became apparent when the United States struck nuclear facilities in Iran in the summer of 2025. Trump was then asked to comment on Gabbard’s previous statements that Iran is not making nuclear weapons. “I don’t care what she said. I think they were pretty close to understanding what she said.” He replied Trump.
Gabbard was later one of Trump’s key advisors who made decisions on the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the military campaign against Iran. The White House joked that her job abbreviation DNI (Director of National Intelligence) means “Do Not Invite.” books The Washington Post.
According to the newspaper and ReutersThe White House forced Gabbard to resign, although it was presented publicly as only her own initiative: Gabbard said she wanted to support her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer. Leaving was humiliating. Gabbard planned to finish the work by the end of June, however Data Axios On June 9, she received a phone call from the new acting Director of National Intelligence, Bill Bolt, telling her that this was her last day. After Gabbard’s conversation with Trump, June 19 was set as the date for her resignation.
Before she left, Gabbard broke the news again: She He pointed out Biden-era intelligence assessments question foreign involvement in Havana Syndrome; and Excreted Data on US biological laboratories abroad, including in Ukraine, that allegedly store dangerous pathogens. And then the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs It had to Explain again that this is legal cooperation in the field of biosecurity, refuting the propaganda narrative about the manufacture of biological weapons ordered by Washington.
Gabbard received political advice from a Hare Krishna community leader. His other students wrote complimentary comments about her
June 21, two days after Gabbard’s resignation, Washington Post Released There is a lot of material about the role that Chris Butler, the head of the religious organization where she grew up, played in her political career. Rebecca Salzburg, a former Butler community member who helped Gabbard during her congressional campaigns, provided reporters with 25,000 pages of letters and documents from her email and social media accounts. Among them were hundreds of notes containing instructions and advice to Gabbard. They belonged to the period 2011-2017, when she served in Congress.
The memos were anonymous and covered a wide range of topics, from legislation Gabbard should propose to specific words she should say publicly or use in Twitter posts. Most of the letters were not addressed directly to Gabbard, but to people around her, including her parents. Meanwhile, Gabbard followed the instructions in these letters. So, in 2014, she introduced a veterans aid bill in Congress, which was suggested to her by her anonymous advisor. In 2015, she followed up by likening the Democratic debate, to which she was not invited, to a party.
The Washington Post analyzed 32 television interviews Gabbard gave between 2014 and 2016, and compared her statements to talking points provided by an anonymous consultant prior to these interviews. It turns out that in 24 cases, Gabbard used language from his notes almost verbatim. On the remaining eight occasions, I promoted some of his ideas, but with different words.
The anonymous advisor sometimes allowed himself to criticize Gabbard harshly. He described her as “cowardly” and “weak” because of her political comments. He criticized her for allegedly bulging out her eyes when she speaks in public. He evaluated her comment on one of Obama’s speeches to Congress as follows: “Nobody cares what you think about his speech, unless you’re going to say something interesting. You’re not even trying. You’ve become really intellectually lazy.”
Rebecca Salzburg said only Butler could talk to Gabbard that way. She said he deliberately concealed his identity and provided advice to Gabbard either directly by phone or through other followers. They recorded his observations and sent them to Gabbard’s circle. The correspondence also revealed that people associated with Butler had organized a “mini-dwarf factory” for Gabbard. They have been writing comments in support of her on social networks and media sites for years, and the last of these comments did not appear until recently, after the official resigned.
Representatives of SIF, the religious organization to which Butler belongs, did not deny the authenticity of the messages Salzburg showed to The Washington Post. But they denied that Butler himself had written it, and stressed that Salzburg could not be trusted because she resigned from the Syrian Islamic Front after the conflict and threatened to destroy the organization’s reputation. Gabbard herself declined to comment. Her office said it considered the article a “false and bigoted” attack on Gabbard’s faith.
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