Democratic senators pressed the U.S. government’s top intelligence official at annual worldwide threats hearings Wednesday about the war with Iran, including whether she had advised President Donald Trump that Tehran was likely to block the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passageway for oil and gas from the Persian Gulf, if attacked. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, repeatedly deflected questions about the intelligence she had offered the Republican president. That exasperated Democrats who tried to use a rare public forum to extract answers about the widening conflict in the Middle East. She sidestepped when asked by Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, whether she had advised Trump that Iran would attack Gulf nations and shut down the strait if the country was targeted by U.S. strikes. “I have not and won’t divulge internal conversations. I will say that those of us within the intelligence community continue to provide the president with all of the best objective intelligence available to inform his decisions,” she said. Trump has urged allies to help safeguard the waterway and ease a chokepoint on the region’s oil exports. He complained on Tuesday that NATO and most other American allies have rejected his calls.
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