Sen. Tuberville Responds To Former CIA Director’s ‘Disgusting’ Threat

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden made his animosity toward U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville clear this week with a pair of social media posts.

Tuberville has spent months blocking a slate of military promotions in an effort to convince the Pentagon to reverse its controversial policy allowing service members to be reimbursed for travel expenses incurred while seeking an abortion.

While the strategy has been controversial, Hayden took the criticism to troubling heights when he replied to a post on X — the platform formerly known as Twitter — asking whether the senator should be “removed from his committee.”

Hayden, who helmed the CIA from 2006 to 2009, replied: “How about the human race?”

The post was widely interpreted as a call for Tuberville’s assassination, and many of the responses tagged law enforcement agencies to express concerns about the apparent threat. 

Tuberville himself reacted to the situation with a statement on Tuesday describing the statement as a call “for a politically motivated assassination” and evidence of a “serious crime.”

The Alabama Republican went on to reference Hayden’s subsequent statement doubling down on his initial “disgusting” sentiment. 

“His own efforts today to reinterpret what he said are only a tacit admission of guilt,” the senator wrote. “If we still have a nonpolitical justice system in this country, then General Hayden will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Tuberville confirmed that his office had forwarded a complaint about the post to Capitol Police.

His statement concluded with a scathing assessment of Democrats who refused to speak out against this and other threatening rhetoric from his political rivals.

“I am not aware of a single Democrat member of Congress who has condemned this reckless statement,” he wrote. “This deafening silence tells us everything we need to know about Democrats and their commitment to ‘Our Democracy.’ In fact, Democrats have only continued to attack me by name today. Sadly, General Hayden is just the latest in a long line of Washington Leftists who have engaged in reckless rhetoric against me over the past few months. This must stop and it must stop now.”

The senator concluded with a call for political civility, noting that he “did not expect to be popular” upon entering office but nevertheless “did not expect to be lied about on the Senate floor and threatened by former government officials like Michael Hayden.”