U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Wednesday he has chosen Tulsi Gabbard, a 43-year-old former Democratic representative and critic of the Biden administration, as his director of national intelligence.

Ms. Gabbard, a former congresswoman who left the Democratic Party, would hold a top job in the administration, overseeing 18 spy agencies.

The meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hung over Gabbard, Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, as she ran for president in 2020.

Donald Trump was expected to pick an outsider to lead the U.S. intelligence community. He exceeded expectations by choosing Tulsi Gabbard. The former Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii has many critics and no formal intelligence experience.

Gabbard, an Army Reserve officer whose antiwar views are seen as sympathetic to Moscow, is considered an unconventional choice to lead U.S. spy agencies.

Tulsi Gabbard has been accused of parroting lines that could be taken off of any regular Russian broadcast over the past decade. They are accusations that she consistently denies. NBC News' Matt Bodner looks into the controversial history of the woman picked by Donald Trump to be his director of national intelligence.