Donald Trump might receive more than he anticipated with his selection for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who is frequently seen with her unconventional husband from New Zealand, Abraham Williams.
Following Trump’s surprising announcement on Wednesday, critics have quickly seized upon Gabbard’s reputation as a promoter of conspiracy theories and her admiration for authoritarian leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
However, delving deeper reveals another intriguing aspect – Gabbard and her husband Williams’ connections to a dubious Hindu fringe sect that has been attempting to gain influence in mainstream politics for many years.
Critics have branded the secretive group, called the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), as intolerant of women, gays, and Muslims, while treating its reclusive leader Chris Butler as some kind of all-powerful deity.
Murky ties to Butler’s group, which straddles Hawaii and New Zealand, could well complicate Gabbard’s bid to secure congressional backing for a senior cabinet-level post as Trump’s top advisor for his key decisions on national security.
Williams, a part-Māori, part-Samoan filmmaker and surfer from Auckland, New Zealand, reportedly met Gabbard, a former Army officer, during her first run for Congress in 2012, when he volunteered to shoot her campaign ads.
That year, Gabbard made history by becoming the first American Samoan and practicing Hindu in Congress.
The pair bonded over their shared love of watersports and started dating about 18 months later.
Abraham Williams and Tulsi Gabbard were married in a traditional Vedic ceremony on the eastern shore of Kahaluu, Hawaii, in 2015
Williams is a freelance cinematographer and Steadicam operator, with experience on commercials, movies, documentaries, and music videos
Williams reportedly proposed to Gabbard while they were surfing at sunset — the diamond ring was duct-taped to a flotation device being pulled behind them.
The practicing Hindus were married in a traditional Vedic ceremony on the eastern shore of Kahaluu, Hawaii, in 2015.
Narendra Modi, India’s populist and Hindu nationalist prime minister, famously bought them a wedding gift.
Williams plays several musical instruments and works as a freelance cinematographer and Steadicam operator, with experience on commercials, movies, documentaries, and music videos.
According to IMDB, he’s best known for such low-budget productions as Decade of the Dead, Go for Broke, Angel by Thursday and Down on the Sidewalk in Waikiki, a short poetic film about a janitor in Hawaii.
His website says he works across ‘diverse and challenging environments, from cities across America to warzones in the Middle East.’
But much of his work nowadays appears to involve trailing Gabbard around with a camera, producing adverts, promotional material and a steady stream of social media content for her burgeoning political career.
Williams’ beach-bum good looks have earned him attention from fashion title Marie Claire, which called him the ‘coolest political spouse.’
Meanwhile, The Oprah magazine dubbed him a ‘low profile’ sidekick to Gabbard who was well worth following on Instagram.
According to a 2021 New York Magazine article, the couple’s connection pre-dates Gabbard’s 2012 congressional campaign by decades, thanks to ties between their families through Butler’s SIF community.
Williams and Gabbard are connected through Chris Butler, founder of the Science of Identity Foundation, a conservative offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement
Renegade Democrat Tulsi Gabbard threw her lot in with Donald Trump this year and could end up being his intelligence chief
Filmmaker Williams volunteered to work on Gabbard’s 2012 campaign to represent Hawaii in the US Congress
Williams’ mom Anya Anthony reportedly left New Zealand and moved to the States soon after he was born and married his stepdad Tim Anthony.
She has worked in Gabbard’s core Hawaii-based political team, which is composed of largely family and long-term friends.
Gabbard, 43, and Williams have said little publicly about the SIF, which has been derided as the ‘alt-right of the Hare Krishna movement.’
Neither of them answered DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
The Hare Krishna movement, best known for chanting mantras, vegetarianism, and yoga, exploded across America in the 1960s and 1970s.
Butler, a surfer in Hawaii, was part of that growth, but splintered from the group and formed SIF in the late 1970s.
A tight-knit SIF community of around a thousand followers developed across Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. It reportedly includes members of the families of Gabbard and Williams.
Gabbard calls Butler a ‘guru’ and says his message is positive and uplifting.
But some former members of his group have described themselves as survivors of a cult, of which Butler was an all-powerful and unquestionable leader.
‘I was raised to believe Chris Butler was God’s voice on earth, and if you questioned him or offended him in any way, you were effectively offending God,’ one such former SIF member wrote in a 2017 post on Medium.
‘Questioning the leader was spiritual suicide, which was seen as worse than death.’
In a damning tell-all interview with The Independent in 2022, Gabbard’s aunt, Dr Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, lifted the lid on what insiders call a homophobic, often anti-Islamic and misogynist cult.
She told the publication that her niece’s career is all about the pursuit of power, and her bid for the presidency in 2020 was the culmination of four decades of Butler’s efforts to seek political influence.
The Hawaii-based couple have family ties and bonded over their shared love of surfing and other watersports
Gabbard’s aunt, Dr Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, says her niece’s faith group made her hungry for power
‘Once again I find my niece’s apparent penchant for parroting extremist toadies such as Tucker Carlson and vile strongmen such as Vladimir Putin, to be problematic and deeply troubling,’ said the retired University of Hawaii professor.
‘It gives me no pleasure to note that Tulsi’s single governing principle seems to be expedience, which is in effect no principle at all.’
Gabbard’s faith background offers insights into the unusual political career of a four-term Democratic congresswoman who ran against President Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries, but then left the party in dramatic fashion in 2022.
She accused her former party of being an ‘elitist cabal of warmongers’ driven by ‘cowardly wokeness,’ and initially registered as an independent.
She became a Fox News contributor, speaking about radical gender ideology and freedom of speech, and became an outspoken advocate of Trump before joining the Republican Party less than a month ago.
She endorsed Trump in August and even helped him prepare for his debate face off with Vice President Harris.
But her political shift has accompanied numerous other statements and actions that have led to claims that she peddles conspiracy theories or could even be working for Russia.
Gabbard’s past political controversies and her links to Butler’s religious group make her an unlikely candidate for being America’s top intelligence officials. Democrats and even some Republicans have already raised objections to her candidacy.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said the president had ‘lost his mind’ by picking Gabbard, as it showed China that the US was not interested in a serious intelligence operation.
