Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, on Tuesday announced she will personally reimburse the group that paid for her eight-day trip to Syria in January.
“Though the trip has met every requirement of the House Ethics Committee, the congresswoman has decided to reimburse AACCESS-Ohio for the trip because it has become a distraction from the important issue at hand – do the American people want their taxpayer dollars to continue to be used in support of militant groups working hand-in-hand with al-Qaeda and ISIS in the effort to overthrow the Syrian government?” Gabbard’s office said in a statement released late Tuesday.
“Contrary to baseless claims in the media, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is beholden to no one in the region, her views on the situation are her own, and her determination to seek peace is beyond question.”
The member of the House armed services and foreign affairs committees traveled to Aleppo, Damascus and Beirut from Jan. 14-22 this year to meet with the Syrian people and see the impact the war has had on the country’s people.
Gabbard has drawn criticism from fellow lawmakers for traveling to Syria and for meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad while there.
“When the opportunity presented itself to meet with President Assad, I took it because I believe that if we profess to care for the Syrian people – we want to end the suffering for them – we have to be willing to meet with whomever we need to in order to accomplish that,” Gabbard said in an earlier statement.
Gabbard has decried the interventionist foreign policy the U.S. has employed in dealing with terrorist groups in Middle Eastern countries in the past, including in Iraq, Libya and presently, Syria.
The Democratic lawmaker instead said the U.S. must consider the potential effect of taking down Assad and leaving Syria without a leader. She said jihadist groups would be the next to take over the country and would only complicate global matters, making life for the Syrian people “a living hell” and creating a “genocide” for religious minorities.
Gabbard introduced the Stop Arming Terrorists Act, a bill that would prohibit U.S. government funds from being used to support al-Qaeda, ISIS and any group mixed up in terrorism.
