Chris Butler, using the pen name Bo Zhongyan (
柏忠言
), coauthored anti-Western books in China with his wife Wai Lana (Zhang Huilan,
张蕙兰
). They described Westerners as
"no more than dogs"
and dedicated their 1986 book to
"the great and magnificent Chinese nation"
—
这个伟大，壮丽国家的全体中国人民.
Source
Note: Thousands of decrypted documents and emails from Butler's secret political operation have been independently examined by the Washington Post. The content on this website is attributed solely to the site's author.
Tulsi Gabbard's signature foreign-policy stance, that the United States should not oppose Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad, was crafted for her.
Tulsi Gabbard's position on Syria and Assad is one of her most controversial. Her stance placed her, time and again, on the side of Assad and his backers in Moscow.
The forensic archive of transcripts from the political project office of the "Jagad Guru" Chris Butler shows his statements and directives on Syria.
The archive contains 204 transcripts
touching Syria and the Assad regime, a steady stream of dictation from 2014 through 2017: the exact lines to say on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, the statements and op-eds to put out, and how to position on her votes in Congress.
A note from the author: every quote below is Butler's own language, drawn from the network's forensic transcript archive and tied to a dated transcript. I am laying them out so you can see for yourself who authored "Tulsi's" Syria policy. Rebecca Saltzburg
What Butler directed Tulsi Gabbard to say about Syria
The centerpiece of her Syria message, the line she became known for, was written by Butler in a May 2014 master issues document. He framed Assad as harmless to America and recast U.S. support for his opponents as support for terrorists.
"Al-Qaeda Enemy, Not Assad. Assad has not done anything to the United States. He's not a national security threat. He's not made a vow to destroy America. He does not engage in terrorist activities against Americans. Al-Qaeda does all of these. Al-Qaeda is the enemy, not Assad."
Chris Butler, POL MST 2014 05 20 1
He repeatedly told her to frame the entire Syrian opposition as terrorists, and U.S. policy as illegally "arming terrorists":
"Becoming increasingly clear that real goal is to overthrow Assad and create a new government in Syria."
Chris Butler, POL TRS 2014 09 26 2
He built attacks on Hillary Clinton around the same issue, casting her support for the Syrian rebels as the central indictment:
"Exposing Clinton's lie Re Arming Syrian Rebels. Clinton has all these statements that she's against arming the rebels and we can't trust who they are…"
Chris Butler, POL TRS 2014 09 23 3
By 2016, he was scripting the rapid-response line for anyone who called Tulsi an Assad apologist, flipping the charge back onto the critic:
"Whenever anybody writes letters or comments that say 'Tulsi is for allying herself with the butcher Assad in Syria,'… we need to have people respond to that by saying very clearly: You want to continue being the ally of ISIS and al-Qaeda."
Chris Butler, POL TRS 2016 06 30 4
What Butler directed Tulsi Gabbard to do about Syria
Butler did not stop at talking points. He told her which statements to issue, which bills to push, and which op-eds to publish.
"Make a statement standing up for Christians in Syria… [it] would be better to have a track record of making statements and putting a bill in to stop all aid or whatever to these governments, or Syrian rebel forces that are killing Christians."
Chris Butler, POL MST 2014 05 20 1
He directed standing statements that contradicted the Obama administration's Syria policy, and kept the pressure on even when news cycles moved:
"Want to do something in connection with the arming of the moderate army because with the election and everything, it just got pushed to the background."
Chris Butler, POL TRS 2014 11 04 5
The direction continued for years. In April 2017, just after her secret trip to meet Assad in Damascus, Butler's team was drafting the op-ed under her name:
"Medium Blog Draft: The Key US Goal in Syria Should Be to Prevent Genocide. Simply put, there are several terrorist organizations, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others, fighting to overthrow Syrian President Assad and his government."
Draft prepared for Tulsi Gabbard, POL MEM 2017 04 09 6
What Butler directed Tulsi Gabbard to vote on regarding Syria
In 2014, Congress took up whether to fund and arm the Syrian opposition against ISIS. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Tulsi had a vote. Butler's operation worked out her position on that vote in advance.
"Only issue with saying that we can't do this from our position is that I'm on the Armed Services Committee and we're going to be having to vote on whether or not to give the Department of Defense money [to] arm the Syrian Freedom Fighters… Right now, the only people I trust giving weapons to is the Kurds."
Discussed in the operation, POL TRS 2014 08 27 7
The position Butler had been scripting for months, that arming Assad's opponents meant arming terrorists, became the frame for how she would handle an actual vote in Congress on U.S. military policy.
The through-line
Read together, the direction is consistent. Across hundreds of transcripts, Butler steered Tulsi toward one outcome: the United States should not weaken Bashar al-Assad. Opposing aid to his opponents, branding them terrorists, attacking the politicians who wanted to arm them, and, by 2015, openly weighing "Syria, Russia, and United States goals" as Russia built up its airbases in Syria. 8
That is a position that served Assad and, with him, his patrons in Russia and Iran. It is the position Tulsi carried to Damascus in 2017. And it was authored by a man who spent four decades publishing propaganda through Chinese Communist Party state presses.
Tulsi Gabbard, who served as Director of National Intelligence from February 2025 until June 2026, was a literal mouthpiece for her guru Chris Butler.
