[GEO.TV] Tulsi Gabbard has been sworn in as the Director of National Intelligence inside the Oval Office with President Trump in attendance following the confirmation by US Senate.
The Senate voted 52 to 48, mostly along party lines, to confirm Gabbard to the position overseeing the 18-agency intelligence community and acting as Trump's top adviser on intelligence issues.
The vote was another victory for Trump as he pushes to secure quick Senate approval for all of his nominees for administration positions.
The Senate's Republican majority leader, John Thune, scheduled a procedural vote on Robert F Kennedy Jr, who also faced fierce opposition to his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services, immediately after the Gabbard confirmation vote.
Gabbard, a 43-year-old former Democrat, had faced bipartisan questions about past statements seen as supporting US adversaries, and lack of experience.
She neither worked at a spy agency nor served on an intelligence committee during her four House of Representatives terms.
Gabbard will now oversee an agency created by Congress in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks to coordinate the country's sprawling intelligence apparatus, one of the most important national security positions in the US government.
"The selection of a DNI is a very big deal," said Emily Harding, director of the Intelligence, National Security and Technology Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, noting the DNI's broad access to classified material and role as the president's main intelligence adviser.
