Former representative and Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard tweeted out a video about “US-funded biolabs in Ukraine” on Sunday that prompted enormous backlash that included Sen. Mitt Romney accusing her of “treasonous lies.” On Monday, Gabbard snapped back at Romney in a long thread.
After her initial tweet, Gabbard faced a huge pile-on from verified media accounts and Democrats, and a fair amount from Republicans as well.
“There are 25 to 30 US-funded biolabs in Ukraine,” Gabbard says in the video. “According to the U.S. government, these biolabs are conducting research on dangerous pathogens. Ukraine is in an active war zone. Widespread bombing, artillery, and shelling, and these facilities, even in the best of circumstances could be easily compromised and release these deadly pathogens.”
Her tweet called for “a ceasefire now” until the labs are “secured” and the “pathogens destroyed.”
CNN White House correspondent John Harwood said in his retweet that Gabbard is “spreading Vladimir Putin’s propaganda” with the video. That’s
Romney’s characterization of her tweet prompted a very long response thread from Gabbard, who wrote, “Senator Romney, please provide evidence that what I said is untrue and treasonous.”
She added, equally dramatically, “If you cannot, you should do the honorable thing: apologize and resign from the Senate.”
On the substance of her tweet, she went through a list of her justifications in the thread. Perhaps choosing her source based on the reply from Harwood, Gabbard wrote in her fifth point: “CNN fact-check (March 10, 2022): ‘There are US-funded biolabs in Ukraine, that much is true.'”
“So, Senator Romney, you have a choice: out of pride, continue to deny the truth or admit you are wrong, apologize, and resign,” Gabbard concludes. “And remember that without the truth, we can be neither safe nor free.”
Russia has made dozens of claims about Ukraine and the United States that run the gamut from dubious to preposterous, and among them are the accusations of nuclear weapons stashed in the country, and that there are biological and chemical weapons being researched or developed there. The Dept. of Defense and the Pentagon have repeatedly stated this is not so, and moreover that it is the habit of Putin’s Russia to assert crimes are being committed by others
Obviously, propaganda frequently takes partial truths or isolated facts to construct the propagandists’ narratives.
Sen. Romney has previously referred to pro-Putin Republicans as being “almost treasonous.” At the time of this post, he has not tweeted again on the subject of Gabbard’s tweets.