A Republican senator who sits on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee says he and his colleagues will have “lots of questions” for Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who was a member of the House between 2013 and 2021 and is President Trump’s nominee to be director of national intelligence.

Ms. Gabbard has faced fierce opposition from Democrats, some of whom have called her an agent of foreign dictators. Senator Lankford, appearing on CNN on Sunday, said Ms. Gabbard’s 2017 meetings with Syria’s President Assad raise concerns, along with other past statements about international affairs. 

“We’ll have lots of questions. She met with Bashar [al] Assad. We’ll wanna know what the purpose was, and what the direction for that was, as a member of Congress. We’ll wanna get a chance to talk about comments that she’s made,” Mr. Lankford told CNN. “There’s comments that are floating out there, but we wanna be able to know the rest of the story.”

According to Punchbowl News, Mr. Lankford shares the sentiments of many of his Republican colleagues, who have raised concerns about not only Ms. Gabbard’s assertion that Mr. Assad did not commit war crimes against his own citizens, but her praise for Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. Senators are considering pushing for the FBI to declassify Ms. Gabbard’s FBI file for at least members of the Senate so that they can learn about any potential foreign contacts she may have. 

Democrats have been quick to cast Ms. Gabbard aside as a foreign asset even before she was nominated. When she ran for president in 2020, Vice President Harris implied during a Democratic primary debate that Ms. Gabbard had a special place in her heart for foreign autocrats. 

Senate Democrats are sticking with that line. “I think she’s compromised by going to Syria and basically backing Assad,” Senator Duckworth, a fellow Army combat veteran, told CNN after Ms. Gabbard’s nomination was announced. 

Senator Mullin — who served in the House with Ms. Gabbard for six years and has described her as a “sister” — hit back at those comments on the same network. 

“You gotta keep in mind: Tulsi Gabbard is still a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army … if she was ‘compromised,’ if she wasn’t able to pass a background check, if she wasn’t able to do her job, she wouldn’t be in the Army,” Mr. Mullin said. “[Ms. Duckworth] is absolutely dead wrong on this and she should retract those words. It’s the most dangerous thing she could say.”

“It’s actually sad to hear her say that,” the Oklahoma senator added.