PAUL: Here's How Much Biden's TSA Was 'Weaponized' Against Tulsi Gabbard
'Quiet Skies was an unconstitutional dystopian nightmare masquerading as a security tool.' #47
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In 2024, Rand Paul launched an investigation into how the Biden administration had reportedly politically targeted former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
She wasn’t the only target.
On Tuesday, Paul shared the results of his report. The senator is the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
What did he reveal?
Donald Trump’s critics constantly warn that he’s an authoritarian.
But what Paul found the Biden administration doing to private citizens - simply for having the wrong politics - would be the envy of dictators around the world.
Biden’s ‘Weaponization’ of the TSA
Paul said in his opening statement, “In mid-2024, as she grew increasingly critical of the Biden administration and increasingly involved with the Trump campaign, Tulsi Gabbard noticed changes as she went to the airport, she had more screening federal agents with dogs showing up for her flights. Other federal agents followed her on the plane and reported back on her activity.”
The federal government was hounding her.
For her SPEECH.
Paul mentioned his investigation into how “the Biden administration’s weaponization of watch list against everyday Americans.”
And how Team Biden pushed back.
“Under public scrutiny, the Biden administration removed now Director of National Intelligence Gabbard from the program, but they spent the remainder of their time in office stonewalling any investigation,” Paul said.
In June, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem ended the TSA’s Quiet Skies program.
Not Only Tulsi
Paul detailed how federal officials knew exactly what they were doing in spying on Gabbard.
“Director Gabbard was surveilled on at least five domestic flights by Federal Air Marshals under Quiet Skies,” Paul noted. “Internal records for her targeting show her congressional portrait and that she was a former congresswoman from Hawaii.”
“So, there was no doubt they knew who they were monitoring,” he added.
The importance of Paul’s investigation should be noted. Finding out who the Biden administration targeted was no easy feat.
Paul observed, “Multiple concerns were raised internally, and one air marshal asked a colleague, why the heck is she a Quiet Skies suspect? If this can happen to a combat veteran, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, and now Director of National Intelligence, it can happen to anyone.”
“And it did.”
Sen. Paul announced the testimony of a Federal Air Marshal’s wife, a Catholic school teacher, who had been “labeled a domestic terrorist simply for engaging in protected First Amendment activity.”
What made her a ‘terrorist?’ The FBI had labeled her as such for allegedly entering the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Never mind that this woman had no criminal record and no history of extremist views.
Also never mind that she didn’t even enter the Capitol on that day and had phone data that would prove this.
It didn’t matter. Her family was surveilled when they flew. For two years.
“This was not an isolated case,” Paul said. “It happened to hundreds of Americans.”
They even targeted three Republican members of Congress.
He added, “Using broad and vague authorities, TSA deemed hundreds of Americans as threats to national security simply for holding opposing political views.”
The senator would also say, “Quiet Skies was an unconstitutional dystopian nightmare masquerading as a security tool.”
The purpose of Paul’s investigation and hearing was to get to the bottom of just how badly the Biden administration abused the rights of private citizens and to make sure this never happens again.
It was a check on power, over unconstitutional powers that no administration should ever be able to assume again.
Amen to that. The utter hypocrisy of the left calling Trump authoritarian.
The Dems are loosing control and they know it. So they are running around like a bunch of Chicken Littles screaming the sky is falling. It is falling alright on them.