Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to refrain from sharing intelligence with Germany\u2019s domestic intelligence agency days after the country’s spy arm labeled the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, as an \u201cextremist\u201d political party.<\/p>\n
Cotton requested that, until Germany treats the AfD as a \u201clegitimate opposition party\u201d and not as a \u201cright-wing extremist organization,\u201d Gabbard should direct the U.S. intelligence agencies to halt sharing intelligence with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).<\/p>\n
He also asked that Gabbard deny Berlin\u2019s potential requests to assist in surveilling the AfD and review if intelligence agencies during former President Biden\u2019s administration \u201ccooperated with German requests to surveil the AfD or other opposition parties.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cRather than trying to undermine the AfD using the tools of authoritarian states, Germany\u2019s incoming government might be better advised to consider why the AfD continues to gain electoral ground and how Germany’s government can address the reasonable concerns of its citizens,\u201d Cotton, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote in a two-page Monday letter to Gabbard<\/a>, which was made public Wednesday. <\/p>\n The Hill has reached out to Gabbard’s office for comment. The Arkansas Republican asked that Gabbard alert the Senate about anything she uncovers in the requested review.<\/p>\n Cotton\u2019s request comes less than a week after BfV marked the AfD<\/a>, the party that won the second most votes in Germany\u2019s recent election, as an extremist entity that represents a threat to democracy. <\/p>\n The designation came shortly after BfV\u2019s three-year investigation found that AfD is breaching \u201cfundamental principles\u201d of the German Constitution. Now, Germany\u2019s spy agency is allowed to increase surveillance and oversight of the political party. <\/p>\n \u201cCentral to our assessment is the ethnically and ancestrally defined concept of the people that shapes the AfD, which devalues entire segments of the population in Germany and violates their human dignity,\u201d BfV said, adding that the \u201cconcept is reflected in the party\u2019s overall anti-migrant and anti-Muslim stance.\u201d<\/p>\n The move received strong pushback from top Trump officials over the weekend. <\/p>\n Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also now serves as national security adviser, slammed the spy agency and claimed that the development does not equal \u201cdemocracy \u2014 it\u2019s tyranny in disguise.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhat is truly extremist is not the popular AfD \u2014 which took second in the recent election \u2014 but rather the establishment\u2019s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes,\u201d Rubio said on Friday<\/a>, urging Germany to \u201creverse course.\u201d<\/p>\n