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senate intelligence committee
Senator Corners Tulsi Gabbard Over Trump’s False Claim That Iran Nuclear Threat Was 'Imminent'
Sen. Jon Ossoff questioned how Iran could pose an "imminent nuclear threat" despite the purported "obliteration" of its nuclear program.
Mar 18, 2026
Sen. Jon Ossoff on Wednesday cornered Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard over President Donald Trump's false claims that he launched a war with Iran because it was an "imminent" threat to US national security.
During a Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing, Ossoff (D-Ga.) questioned Gabbard about how any purported threat from Iran could possibly be deemed "imminent" given past administration statements about the state of its nuclear weapons program.
Ossoff began by noting that Gabbard's opening statement given to the committee ahead of the meeting claimed that "Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated" as a result of airstrikes launched last year by the US.
"So the assessment of the intelligence community is that Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated by last summer's airstrikes?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Gabbard, who prior to joining the Trump administration had a long history of advocating against launching a regime change war against Iran.
OSSOFF: Your opening statement stated that as a result of last summer's airstrikes, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was 'obliterated.' Correct?
GABBARD: That's right
OSSOFF: The WH stated on March 1 that this war was launched to 'eliminate the imminent nuclear threat posed by… pic.twitter.com/3rPVnmZVTb
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 18, 2026
"The opening statement you submitted to the community last night also stated, 'There has been no effort since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability,' correct?" Ossoff continued.
"That's right," Gabbard replied.
"The White House stated on March 4 of this year that this war... was a 'military campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime,'" Ossoff said. "That's a statement from the White House: 'The imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime.' Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime?"
Gabbard briefly paused and then responded that "the intelligence community assessed that Iran maintained the intention to rebuild and to continue to grow their nuclear enrichment capabilities."
At this point, Ossoff interjected.
"Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an 'imminent nuclear threat' posted by the Iranian regime, yes or no?" he pressed.
"Senator, the only person who can determine what is or is not an imminent threat is the president," Gabbard said.
"False," Ossoff shot back. "This is the worldwide threats hearing where you present to Congress national intelligence... you've stated today that the intelligence community's assessment is that Iran's nuclear enrichment program was 'obliterated,' and that there 'had been no efforts since then to try to enrich their capability.'"
Ossoff then asked Gabbard if the intelligence community believed Iran posed an "imminent nuclear threat" despite the purported "obliteration" of its nuclear program.
"It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determined what is and is not an imminent threat," Gabbard said.
"It is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States," Ossoff countered. "This is the worldwide threats hearing."
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'Wyden Siren' Sounds Anew as Senator's Cryptic Letter Hints at CIA Wrongdoing
"When Wyden sends a cryptic letter or asks a pointed question suggesting something concerning is happening behind the classification curtain, something concerning is absolutely happening," said one observer.
Feb 05, 2026
Sen. Ron Wyden "only talks like this when the spies do something *real* bad."
That's how journalist Spencer Ackerman reacted Thursday to a letter from the Oregon Democrat to Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe expressing alarm over unspecified CIA activities, as observers noted Wyden's history of heads-up previews of government wrongdoing.
“I write to alert you to a classified letter I sent you earlier today, in which I express deep concerns about CIA activities,” Wyden, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in the letter. “Thank you for your attention to this important matter.”
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner “shares many of the concerns expressed by Sen. Wyden in his letter, and in fact he has expressed them to... Ratcliffe himself," according to a spokesperson for the Virginia Democrat.
This is how Sen. Ron Wyden clues the public into activity that he finds extremely alarming. He does a press release about a letter he sent to the director of the CIA that basically says, 'I want to make sure you saw the classified letter I sent early today.' www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/do...
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— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill.bsky.social) February 4, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Wyden told HuffPost Thursday that “the reason I sent the public letter is that is all that I’m allowed to say publicly, and I’m gonna leave it at that.”
“I said what I did for a specific reason," he added. "I wrote it for a specific reason. That’s all I can say.”
Wyden has a storied history of issuing cryptic warnings about classified government or intelligence misdeeds before they are disclosed to the public, going back to the Obama administration's secret reinterpretation of the PATRIOT Act in 2011.
The senator also warned about a withheld 2015 Department of Justice legal opinion on cybersecurity, Section 702 surveillance during the first Trump administration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) use of bulk administrative subpoenas to collect millions of Americans’ financial records during the Biden administration, and more.
Techdirt blog editor Mike Masnick calls it the "Wyden Siren": "The pattern repeats. Wyden asks a specific question about surveillance. The intelligence community answers a slightly different question in a way that technically isn’t lying but is designed to mislead. Wyden calls them out. Eventually, the truth comes out, and it’s always worse than people assumed."
"The track record here is essentially perfect," Masnick added. "When Wyden sends a cryptic letter or asks a pointed question suggesting something concerning is happening behind the classification curtain, something concerning is absolutely happening behind the classification curtain."
Masnick continued:
So what’s happening at the CIA that has Wyden sending a two-sentence letter that amounts to “I legally cannot tell you what’s wrong, but something is very wrong?"
We don’t know yet. That’s the whole point of classification—it keeps the public in the dark about what their government is doing in their name. But Wyden’s letter is the equivalent of a fire alarm. He’s seen something. He can’t say what. But he wants there to be a record that he raised the concern.
"Given the current administration’s approach to, well, everything, the possibilities are unfortunately vast," Masnick said. "Is it about domestic surveillance? Something about current [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard? International operations gone sideways? Some new interpretation of the CIA’s authorities that would make Americans’ hair stand on end if they knew about it? We’re left guessing, just like we were guessing about the PATRIOT Act’s secret interpretation back in 2011."
"But here’s what we do know: Ron Wyden has been doing this for at least 15 years," Masnick added. "And every single time, he’s been vindicated. The secret programs were real. The abuses were real. The gap between what the public thought was happening and what was actually happening was real."
"The Wyden Siren is blaring," he added. "Pay attention."
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Push Back Against Sen. Cotton’s McCarthyite Lies About CODEPINK: Women for Peace
Sen. Cotton does not seem to care that his untruthful statements in a U.S. congressional hearing aired around the world can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those he lies about, their friends, and family.
Mar 27, 2025
On Tuesday, in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats with the five heads of intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton accused on national TV a group I have worked with for over 20 years, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, of being funded by the Communist Party of China.
During the hearing CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry stood up following the presentation of the Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard’s lengthy statement about global threats to U.S. national security and yelled, “Stop Funding Israel,” since neither Intelligence Committee Chair Cotton nor Vice Chair Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) had mentioned Israel in their opening statement, nor had Gabbard mentioned the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in her statement either.
As Capitol police were taking Barry out of the hearing room, in the horrific style of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, Cotton maliciously said that Barry was a “CODEPINK lunatic that was funded by the Communist Party of China.” Cotton then said if anyone had something to say to do so.
CODEPINK members have been challenging in the U.S. Congress the war policies of five presidential administrations, beginning in 2001 with the Bush wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, long before Sen. Cotton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2014.
Refusing to buckle or be intimidated by Cotton’s lies about the funding of CODEPINK, I stood up and yelled, “I’m a retired Army colonel and former diplomat. I work with CODEPINK, and it is not funded by Communist China.” I too was hauled out of the hearing room by Capitol police and arrested.
After I was taken out of the hearing room, Cotton libelously continued his McCarthyite lie: “The fact that Communist China funds CODEPINK, which interrupts a hearing about Israel, illustrates Director Gabbard’s point that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are working together in greater concert than they ever had before.”
Sen. Cotton does not appreciate the responsibility he has in his one-month-old elevation to the chair of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee.
Sen. Cotton does not seem to care that his untruthful statements in a U.S. congressional hearing aired around the world can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those he lies about, their friends, and family. In today’s polarized political environment, we know that the words of senior leaders can rile supporters into frenzies as we saw on January 6, 2021, with President Donald Trump’s loyal supporters injuring many Capitol police and destroying parts of the nation’s Capitol building in their attempt to stop the presidential election proceedings.
CODEPINK members have been challenging in the U.S. Congress the war policies of five presidential administrations, beginning in 2001 with the Bush wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, long before Sen. Cotton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2014. We have been in the U.S. Senate offices and halls twice as long as he has. We have nonviolently protested the war policies of former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump, Joe Biden, and now Trump again.
After getting out of the Capitol Hill police station, a CODEPINK delegation went to Sen. Cotton’s office in the Russell Senate Office building and made a complaint to his office staff.
We are also submitting a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee over the untrue and libelous statements Sen. Cotton made in the hearing.
The abduction and deportation of international students who joined protests against U.S. complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, the scathing treatment of visitors who have wanted to enter our country, and now the McCarthyite intimidating tactics used by Sen. Cotton in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing of telling lies about individuals and organizations that challenge the policies of the U.S. government, particularly its complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza, must be called out and pushed back against.
And we must push back against U.S. senators who actually receive funding from front groups for other countries. Sen. Cotton has received $1,197,989 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to advocate for the genocidal policies of the State of Israel.
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