After being pressed by senators from both parties to call Edward Snowden a traitor, Tulsi Gabbard repeatedly refused during her confirmation hearing on Thursday morning. Why it matters: Gabbard's past comments and legislation defending Snowden have threatened her confirmation to be President Trump's director of national intelligence.

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be director of national intelligence, rejected claims by Senate Democrats on Thursday that the president would ask her to violate the law.

Gabbard is transferring her business to her spouse in a move experts said could create conflict of interest concerns.

Could a confirmation hearing finally matter? The answers provided by Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday may make it the most consequential hearing for an executive branch nomination in years.

Senate Republicans and their allies believe former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard ’s chances of being confirmed as director of national intelligence will hinge on her performance during her confirmation hearing next week, with several mentioning she has an “uphill battle” in her chances of being confirmed.

One expert says her views are ‘so wildly fringe that her potential appointment as DNI is genuinely alarming’, Richard Hall and Andrew Feinberg write

Donald Trump ’s FBI director pick Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard and Ambassador to the United Nations hopeful Elise Stefanik are among a string of confirmation hearings happening in the Senate today.

It’s Gabbard’s comments, however, that have posed the biggest challenge to her confirmation. Gabbard has repeatedly echoed Russian propaganda used to justify the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine and criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a corrupt autocrat.

Tulsi Gabbard fought back against what she called “smears,” declaring she is nobody’s “puppet” before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, refused to fully denounce the 2013 leaks by Edward J. Snowden, eliciting concern from both parties.

Gabbard was questioned by Republicans and Democrats alike on her views of Snowden and whether she believes he was a traitor. She declined to say she believed he was a traitor, repeating that she felt he had broken the law and reiterating a point that she has made in the past, that he exposed practices that have resulted in the reform of 702.