Hostage Families to Senate: Quickly Confirm Gabbard

The family of an American murdered by the Islamic State group after being taken hostage and a former American hostage and his family are urging the Senate to quickly confirm Tulsi Gabbard as President-elect Donald Trump's director of national intelligence.

Gabbard received the support Wednesday in a letter signed by Carl and Marsha Mueller, whose daughter Kayla Mueller, a human rights activist, was taken hostage by the Islamic State group in Syria in 2013 and murdered two years later.

Theo Padnos, an American journalist held hostage by an al-Qaida-linked group in Syria for two years before being released in 2014, and his parents, Nancy Curtis and Michael Padnos, also signed.

The letter, first obtained by the Washington Reporter, added to the support received by Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. More than 1,100 veterans signed a letter endorsing Gabbard, who also received backing from the National Border Patrol Council, the union for Customs and Border Patrol officers.

"American hostage families know that Tulsi Gabbard has always been on our side," the Mueller and Padnos families wrote. "We know this because all of us have been in the position of needing information and connections in a country in which the American foreign policy apparatus has been unable to provide even the most basic forms of help.

"As regards Syria in particular: During our ordeals, we discovered that international terrorists have always had something of a free hand in its outlying districts. Now that the individuals who helped to build up ISIS and [al-Qaida] in Syria have taken charge of the country, we expect terrorists there to have a much freer hand in the future."

"Those men have made it their business to control cells in Syria. Through adept use of social media, they exercise a degree of control over the minds of lone wolves in the West," they wrote.

Even though Democrats have threatened to try to delay Gabbard's Senate confirmation hearing and some Republican senators are on the fence about her, the families wrote, "The sooner the senate confirms Tulsi Gabbard the better, as the nation needs leadership that will keep Americans safe."

• Democrats Push to Delay Gabbard's Confirmation Hearing
• Some GOP Sens Reluctant on Tulsi Gabbard for DNI