After Sen. Mitt Romney blasted her as a “treasonous liar,” former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard came roaring back demanding that the Utah Republican prove his accusations or apologize and resign.
Gabbard, who served as a Democrat representative from the deep blue state of Hawaii, has made a name for herself as one of the true moderate Democrats in American politics. She is no conservative, mind you, but she also refuses to fall prey to the wild, left-wing swings that most other Democrat politicians indulge in daily.
Recently, she became a target of Romney for her comments about biolabs in Ukraine.
Last week, Gabbard posted a video to Twitter in which she expressed her alarm over the large number of facilities “conducting research on dangerous pathogens” being operated — with U.S. funding — in Ukraine.
She called for them to be shut down: “So, in order to protect the American people — the people of Europe, the people around the world — these labs need to be shutdown immediately. And the pathogens that they hold need to be destroyed.”
There are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to US/world. We must take action now to prevent disaster. US/Russia/Ukraine/NATO/UN/EU must implement a ceasefire now around these labs until they’re secured & pathogens destroyed pic.twitter.com/dhDTH5smIG
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 13, 2022
Gabbard expressed concern that these pathogens could be “inadvertently or purposely breached or compromised,” causing them to spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
But Romney blasted Gabbard for expressing her thoughts, calling her statement dangerous and even “treasonous.” The 2012 GOP loser jumped to his own Twitter account and claimed: “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.”
Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) March 13, 2022
Gabbard did not sit by and let Romney call her Vladimir Putin’s tool. The former representative struck back, posting a long thread to Twitter on Monday blasting Romney for offering no proof to counter the assertions in her original video.
“Mitt Romney, you have called me a ‘treasonous liar’ for stating the fact that ‘there are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to US/world’ and therefore must be secured in order to prevent new pandemics,” Gabbard tweeted.
“Bizarrely, you claim that securing these labs (or even calling for securing these labs) is treasonous and will lead to a loss of life, when the exact opposite is obviously true. The spread of pathogens is what will cause the loss of life, not the prevention of such spread.”
“Senator Romney, please provide evidence that what I said is untrue and treasonous. If you cannot, you should do the honorable thing: apologize and resign from the Senate,” she said. “Evidence of the existence of such biolabs, their vulnerability, and thus the need to take immediate action to secure them is beyond dispute.”
She offered the following evidence in a series of tweets before closing with: “So, Senator Romney, you have a choice: out of pride, continue to deny the truth or admit you are wrong, apologize, and resign. Aloha. And remember that without the truth, we can be neither safe nor free.”
Here is her full Twitter thread:
Senator Romney, please provide evidence that what I said is untrue and treasonous. If you cannot, you should do the honorable thing: apologize and resign from the Senate.
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 14, 2022
#1. State Department’s Victoria Nuland acknowledged such labs containing dangerous pathogens exist in Ukraine in her testimony to the US Senate (March 8, 2022): “Ukraine has biological research facilities which, in fact we are quite concerned that Russian troops may be seeking…
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 14, 2022
#2. Pentagon Fact sheet (March 11, 2022) has numerous statements directly & indirectly confirming the existence of such biolabs. https://t.co/63DIGQSm9c
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 14, 2022
#3. CBS Face the Nation (March 13, 2022) correspondent David Martin said a Pentagon official told him they’re concerned about the existence of such biolabs in Ukraine: “The concern is that the Russians will seize one of these biomedical research facilities that Ukraine has…
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 14, 2022
#4. In April 2020, in refuting Russia’s accusation that U.S. is using biolabs in Ukraine to develop biological weapons, U.S. Embassy in Ukraine acknowledged there are U.S. funded labs in Ukraine working with pathogens for vaccine & other peaceful purposes https://t.co/oIPROY43l6
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 14, 2022
#6. Furthermore, according to the DoD there are two biolabs in Ukraine that have been under Russian control for some time: “Russia illegally took possession of two Ukrainian-owned laboratories that BTRP upgraded in 2014 and continues to deny Ukrainian access to these facilities.”
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 14, 2022
So, Senator Romney, you have a choice: out of pride, continue to deny the truth or admit you are wrong, apologize, and resign.
Aloha.
And remember that without the truth, we can be neither safe nor free.
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 14, 2022
How any of that amounts to “treason” is anybody’s guess.
In any case, it appears beyond doubt that there are biological research facilities in Ukraine, of course. It is also likely that some of them have received U.S. tax dollars.
Indeed, the U.S. Defense Department recently admitted that the U.S. had sunk at least $200 million into Ukrainian labs:
“A few key points about the Department of Defense’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program Biological Threat Reduction Program activities in Ukraine this is part of the Department of Defense’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Through that program, we have invested approximately $200 million in Ukraine since 2005, supporting 46 Ukrainian labs, health facilities, and diagnostic sites. DOD’s CTR program began its biological work with Ukraine to eliminate the remnants of the Soviet Union’s illegal biological weapons program left in the Soviet successor states after the USSR fell. There are no DOD bioweapon labs in Ukraine or anywhere else in the world.”
It is also hard — for obviously reasons — to ascertain whether highly dangerous pathogens are being stored in any of these labs, which is what Tulsi Gabbard wants to know.
The question is, why doesn’t Mitt Romney?
via westernjournal
