Director of national intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard’s views on former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and his theft of more than a million classified documents mushroomed into a major point of contention with Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

Republican senators, Democratic senators, and even Edward Snowden urged Tulsi Gabbard to speak out against Edward Snowden at her confirmation hearing, but she steadfastly refused to call the former National Security Agency contractor a traitor.

In 2020, then-Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard introduced legislation calling on the federal government to drop all charges against Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who in 2013 revealed the existence of the bulk collection of American phone records by the NSA before fleeing to Russia.