WASHINGTON —  Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, is a woman of strong views, vigorously expressed.

A former Bernie Sanders Democrat, she now says the Democratic Party is controlled by “an elitist cabal of warmongers” that includes “rogue intelligence and law enforcement agents.” President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, she wrote recently, are merely puppets of that cabal.

A staunch anti-interventionist who opposes almost any use of U.S. military force, the former congresswoman from Hawaii blames Biden — not Vladimir Putin — for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

All of which echoes Trump’s views, especially his conviction that the FBI, CIA and other national security agencies have plotted ceaselessly against him.

On the other hand, during Trump’s first term in the White House, she also complained that he was too tough on Iran and denounced him for acting like “Saudi Arabia’s bitch.”

This year, though, she rallied to his side and endorsed him for promising to seek a thaw with Russia. She was a frequent, telegenic surrogate for his campaign on Fox News. No wonder Trump decided she was the perfect choice to guard the nation’s secrets as director of national intelligence.

National security veterans from both parties are not only unimpressed; they’re alarmed.

“We normally look for demonstrated competence in a nominee,” said Gregory F. Treverton, a former top intelligence official during the Obama administration who now teaches at USC. “This is a case of demonstrated incompetence. … She was obviously selected solely because she’s loyal to Trump.”

“I think she’s a serious threat to our national security,” John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor during his first term, said in a television interview. “Her judgment is nonexistent.”

Among Republicans in the Senate, Gabbard’s nomination elicited a few glowing endorsements — but an impressive list of noncommittal statements.

“That’s a nominee that illustrates the importance of a full background check,” said Susan Collins of Maine, one of the GOP senators who helped sink the nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general last month.

Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma said he “will have a lot of questions.” “It’s really important that we have leadership there that’s able to support” the intelligence agencies, he added.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, formerly the GOP’s second-ranking Senate leader, gave a speech praising most of Trump’s national security nominees by name — but left Gabbard conspicuously off the list. A Cornyn aide declined to say whether the omission was deliberate.

To Senate-watchers, the meaning of all that terseness was clear: If any of Trump’s nominees are in danger, Gabbard is at the top of the list.

Her long record as a foreign policy dissident under both Democratic and Republican presidents will give Senate hawks plenty to scrutinize — and, perhaps, to excoriate.

She not only blamed Biden for Russia’s war on Ukraine (she claims he failed to acknowledge Putin’s “legitimate security concerns” and demanded the United States cut off military aid to Kyiv. She also charged that the U.S. was funding dangerous biological laboratories in Ukraine — “parroting fake Russian propaganda,” Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah complained.

On the Syrian civil war, Gabbard opposed U.S. aid to the rebels fighting the brutal regime of Bashar Assad, met with the authoritarian leader and defended him against the allegations that he used chemical weapons on his own people. Assad, who is propped up by military aid from Iran and Russia, “is not the enemy of the United States,” she said.

She defended Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who were indicted for masterminding two of the biggest leaks of intelligence secrets in U.S. history — a position unlikely to endear her to intelligence community professionals or hawks in the Senate.

Gabbard also criticized Trump during his first term for military intervention, including for bombing Syrian government forces in 2017 in retaliation for Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians.

She condemned Trump for ordering the assassination of Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020, and for imposing harsh economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. She also excoriated Trump for supporting Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian regime in exchange for military purchases — the reason she called him “Saudi Arabia’s bitch.”

Trump does not appear to have held any of that against her — especially after she began campaigning for him. And, of course, he shares Gabbard’s view of the CIA as a rogue agency that needs to be brought to heel.

That’s the core of the problem with her nomination, Treverton argues.

“She’s going to be at war with the intelligence community,” he said. “She’ll politicize it in ways that are obvious and not obvious.”

Intelligence, he added, is an area in which political loyalty is not always a cardinal virtue.

“If the president surrounds himself with yes-men and yes-women, that’s dangerous,” he said. “You need to encourage intelligence officers to come forward with bad news, instead of telling leaders only what they want to hear.”

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former Senate leader, has said he plans to use his remaining time in the Senate to oppose the rising isolationism in his party.

He has criticized Trump’s foreign policy slogan, “America First,” as similar to “the language they used in the ‘20s and ‘30s.” He has said pushing back against Putin and his allies, especially in Ukraine, must be a top priority — no matter what Trump and Gabbard think.

There are at least a dozen national security Republicans in the Senate — “Reagan Republicans,” in McConnell’s words — who share that view. With the GOP holding a 53-47 majority, it would take only four to sink a nomination.

Will McConnell and other Russia hawks have the courage of their convictions? This nomination would be a good place to start.

Lawmakers reacted with harsh criticism on Sunday after President Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who earlier this year was convicted in two separate federal cases.

The pardon comes after Biden and his communications team continued to insist the president’s son would not be pardoned.

Hunter pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in September, which spared him from a public trial over his failure to pay taxes while he spent lavishly on drugs, escorts, luxury hotel stays, clothing and other personal items.

The first son was also convicted of three felony gun charges in June after lying on a mandatory gun purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

BIDEN PARDONS SON HUNTER BIDEN AHEAD OF EXIT FROM OVAL OFFICE

After Hunter was convicted, President Biden indicated he did not plan to pardon his son. That all changed on Sunday night.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., was quick to respond to Biden’s move to pardon his son, saying the president “has lied from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities.”

“Not only has he falsely claimed that he never met with his son’s foreign business associates and that his son did nothing wrong, but he also lied when he said he would not pardon Hunter Biden,” Comer said. “The charges Hunter faced were just the tip of the iceberg in the blatant corruption that President Biden and the Biden Crime Family have lied about to the American people. It’s unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability.”

KJP SAYS PRESIDENT BIDEN STILL HAS NO PLANS TO PARDON HUNTER BIDEN FOR TAX FRAUD, GUN CHARGES

Hunter Biden has been accused in the past of using his father’s political influence to benefit his business interests. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Another federal lawmaker who weighed in on the matter Sunday was House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

“Democrats said there was nothing to our impeachment inquiry,” Jordan said. “If that’s the case, why did Joe Biden just issue Hunter Biden a pardon for the very things we were inquiring about?”

Jordan had been one of the key figures pushing to expose Biden family business dealings and an investigation into alleged corruption that Republicans suggest could have led to an impeachment against President Biden.

POLL COMPARES WHETHER TRUMP, HUNTER BIDEN SHOULD GET PRISON SENTENCES, ACCORDING TO US ADULTS

In September 2023, Hunter filed a lawsuit against former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, alleging the former Trump lawyer violated his privacy rights by illegally disseminating content from a laptop the first son dropped off at a computer store in Delaware.

The complaint claimed Giuliani was “primarily responsible” for the “total annihilation” of Hunter’s digital privacy, while also naming Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor who previously represented the former New York City mayor, as a defendant.

“Biden, who will not even meet with his granddaughter Navy, didn’t pardon his son because he’s a good father,” Giuliani wrote on X after learning about the pardon. “He did so because, as his son admits on the Hard Drive, for 30 years Hunter has given half the millions he’s collected to the Boss of the Crime Family- Joe Biden.”

WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIMS CIA ‘STONEWALLED’ IRS INTERVIEW WITH HUNTER BIDEN ‘SUGAR BROTHER’ KEVIN MORRIS: HOUSE GOP

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also responded to the pardon on X.

“I’m shocked Pres Biden pardoned his son Hunter [because] he said many many times he wouldn’t & I believed him,” Grassley wrote. “Shame on me.”

IRS WHISTLEBLOWER SHAPLEY SAID HE ‘COULD NO LONGER PURSUE’ HUNTER BIDEN SUGAR BROTHER KEVIN MORRIS DUE TO CIA

President-elect Trump had previously been asked whether Biden would pardon his son, and said, “I’ll bet you the father probably pardons him. Let’s see what happens.”

On Sunday, the president-elect took to Truth Social to share his reaction.

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump asked. Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”

Trump’s transition team also responded to the news in a statement to Fox News.

“The failed witch hunts against President Trump have proven that the Democrat-controlled DOJ and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system,” Steven Cheung, who served as Trump’s campaign communications director and has since been appointed to serve as his director of communications in the White House, said. “That system of justice must be fixed, and due process must be restored for all Americans, which is exactly what President Trump will do as he returns to the White House with an overwhelming mandate from the American people.”

IRS investigators Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler, who blew the whistle on political interference into Hunter’s tax crimes, released a statement after learning about the pardon.

“No amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President’s son off the hook for multiple felonies. We did our duty, told the truth, and followed the law,” they said. “Anyone reading the President’s excuses now should remember that Hunter Biden admitted to his tax crimes in federal court, that Hunter Biden’s attorneys have targeted us for our lawful whistleblower disclosures, and that we are suing one of those attorneys for smearing us with false accusations.

“President Biden has the power to put his thumb on the scales of justice for his son, but at least he had to do it with a pardon explicitly for all the world to see rather than his political appointees doing it secretly behind the scenes,” they continued. “Either way it is a sad day for law-abiding taxpayers to witness this special privilege for the powerful.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment, but has not yet heard back.

President Biden on Sunday issued a “full and unconditional” pardon to his son Hunter, who was convicted by a jury of illegally purchasing a handgun in Delaware and pleaded guilty to tax charges in Los Angeles.

Biden and his staff had repeatedly and publicly stated he would not pardon Hunter. But with less than two months remaining in his term and President-elect Donald Trump openly calling for his political enemies to be prosecuted, Biden reconsidered.

In explaining the controversial and extraordinary action, which came weeks before the president’s son was to be sentenced by federal judges on both coasts, Biden claimed Hunter was the victim of unfair political attacks.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said in a statement released Sunday.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” he continued in the statement.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Republicans condemned the move, with Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, accusing the president of lying “from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities.”

“He also lied when he said he would not pardon Hunter Biden,” Comer said in a statement.

“Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

President Biden said he came to the decision after spending the Thanksgiving holiday with his son and other family members in Nantucket.

The pardon covers offenses that Hunter Biden “may have committed or taken part in” from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024. It effectively wiped away the two pending criminal cases in which the younger Biden faced a combined maximum of several years in prison, although he was likely to serve only a few years, at most.

But the pardon also offers immunity for other conduct in that period, when he was active in foreign business dealings, including his seat on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company he joined in 2014 while his father was vice president.

Hunter Biden was paid millions by the company. He denies any wrongdoing.

David Weiss, the special counsel whose office brought both cases against Hunter Biden, did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Late Sunday, Hunter Biden’s lawyers submitted notices of the pardon in federal court, saying both cases are now moot and that the pardon “requires an automatic dismissal” of each.

“I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering,” Hunter Biden said in a statement.

In June, Hunter Biden was convicted of three federal gun crimes, including lying about being drug-free when he purchased and briefly owned a gun while he was addicted to crack cocaine.

The guilty verdict capped a weeklong trial in which prosecutors elicited testimony from Biden’s ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend and his sister-in-law turned lover. All spoke in graphic detail about his addiction to drugs and alcohol, with First Lady Jill Biden often sitting in the front row.

Shortly before the trial testimony began, President Biden told ABC journalist David Muir that he would accept the jury’s verdict in the Delaware case.

“Have you ruled out a pardon for your son?” Muir asked.

“Yes,” Biden replied.

After the verdict, the president said he would continue to “respect the judicial process” while his son considered an appeal.

In September, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to all nine federal tax charges he faced, just as jury selection was about to begin in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

The indictment in the tax case included racy details of Biden’s life between 2016 and 2019 — the period during which now he admits he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes — including the hundreds of thousands of dollars he spent on escorts, a pornographic website, hotels, luxury car rentals and other lavish personal expenses.

As part of his guilty plea, Biden had acknowledged improperly classifying his personal expenses as business expenses.

In both cases, Hunter Biden and his legal team had sought to paint himself as a victim of selective, unfair, and politically motivated prosecution. His lawyers had pointed to a plea deal that was reached in 2023 and would have spared Hunter any prison time. It unraveled under questioning from a judge in Delaware, and after the deal collapsed, Weiss, the special counsel, secured indictments in both cases.

The president referred to the end of the plea deal in his statement Sunday.

“Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases,” Biden said. Instead, he said, politics had marred his son’s cases. “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice — and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further.”

Hunter’s lawyers had tried to get both criminal cases dismissed, arguing again that the charges were borne out of a selective and unfair prosecution, but neither judge was swayed.

Hunter Biden now lives in Malibu, where he took up a daily ritual of painting.