“No one knows who this guru really is, what his connections are and where the instructions came from,” Chuck Schumer said. “We need answers.”
As Tulsi Gabbard faces a fresh round of exceedingly difficult questions about the influence of her “guru,†it’s also worth asking the 52 Senate Republicans (including alleged "moderates" like Susan Collins) who ignored every red flag and voted to confirm her to serve as DNI:
Any regrets?
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-06-23T18:49:58.260Z
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/tulsi-gabbard-guru-dni
But in case that weren’t quite enough, let’s also not overlook the fact that Gabbard was a member of a secretive Hare Krishna offshoot religious sect that is considered by many of its former members to be an abusive cult.
Gabbard, who wrapped up her tenure as DNI last week, has long insisted that any suggestion that she was somehow enthralled to or controlled by this sect or its leader, w
hom she has referred to as her “guru,” is just bigotry against her faith.
But it’s against this backdrop that The Washington Post obtained hundreds of secret memos prepared for Gabbard during her congressional tenure,
which were put together by members of the alleged cult and which included thousands of pages of specific directives to her on policy and politics.
After careful analysis of thousands of these documents, which have not been independently verified by MS NOW, the Post determined that they likely came from Gabbard’s secretive guru, a man named Chris Butler......
This week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor and commented on the reporting:
There are reports that Tulsi Gabbard was receiving instructions from a so-called guru and repeating them word for word. That ought to concern all of us if it’s true. No one knows who this guru really is, what his connections are, and where the instructions came from. … We need answers.
.....It stands to reason, for example, that Gabbard has some explaining to do, but I’m also interested in the answers from those who elevated her to an influential intelligence office in the first place.
In February 2025, co
nfronted with an avalanche of reasons to reject Gabbard’s nomination, 52 Senate Republicans — every GOP member except Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell — shrugged off every red flag and voted to confirm her as the nation’s DNI, including so-called “moderates” such as Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
The question for these 52 senators seems obvious: Do you regret that confirmation vote and now recognize it as a mistake? Or do you still think it was a good idea to put Gabbard in this influential intelligence position?
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