In June 2026, a rumor circulated online alleging that former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned from her post as national intelligence director in May 2026, had been operating under the influence of a "guru" during her time in Congress.
Social media users sharing the claim suggested that this person was behind Gabbard's policies, public remarks and posts.
The claim originated with reporting by Jon Swaine at The Washington Post, who published a piece (archived) titled "Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career" on June 21, 2026. As of this writing, Snopes was unable to independently verify the report's claims by obtaining documents or speaking to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
Swaine reportedly obtained thousands of memos from a former secretary of the guru in question — a man named Chris Butler — who leads the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), an offshoot of the Hindu religious organization International Society for Krishna Consciousness (also known as the Hare Krishna Movement). Gabbard was raised in the SIF and identifies as a practicing Hindu.
Snopes contacted Gabbard, the SIF and Swaine for further comment and to request evidence supporting or denying the Washington Post report's claims. We will update this article if they respond.
The connection was first brought to the national stage in October 2017 when The New Yorker published a piece detailing the history of Gabbard's family with Butler's group.
"When the Gabbards moved to Hawaii, in 1983, they joined the circle of disciples around Butler," the New Yorker article said. It also included claims from former SIF members describing an "authoritarian atmosphere," including "devotees lying prostrate whenever he entered the room, or adding bits of his nail clippings to their food, or eating spoonfuls of sand that he had walked upon."
Gabbard denied the claims and told the New Yorker, "I can speak to my own personal experience and, frankly, my gratitude to him, for the gift of this wonderful spiritual practice that he has given to me, and to so many people."
In a 2019 interview with the Washington Post, available to view on YouTube around the one-hour mark, Gabbard called the New Yorker piece a "smear article" and said of Butler, "He's one of my spiritual teachers. One who provides spiritual guidance." When asked if she received political mentorship from Butler, Gabbard said, "No, no, not at all."
The 2026 Washington Post piece effectively aimed to challenge the veracity of Gabbard's emphatic denial of Butler's political influence.
Swaine wrote that he had acquired thousands of memos from a former SIF secretary named Rebecca Saltzburg who "had worked for Butler as a secretary in the 1990s, and lived for a time with Gabbard's parents and other devotees in a rented property."
The documents from Saltzburg reportedly included "25,000 pages, including hundreds of memos reflecting guidance for Gabbard between 2011 and 2017, most from her first two terms in Congress."
Swaine wrote:
Dozens of attached memos appeared to document directives and advice for Gabbard from her time in Congress. Some contained instructions on what legislation she should propose, which policies she should embrace and how she should conduct herself on television. They had an air of authority. A memo about a proposal to partition war-torn Iraq into three states quoted an unnamed person as saying it was "time for TG to come up with this idea."
Swaine reported that he and a colleague "compared Gabbard's remarks in 32 TV interviews between 2014 and 2016 with the talking-points memos intended for them" and found that in 24 of those interviews, she used the wording in the memos "almost verbatim." In the eight other interviews, she used different phrasing but still promoted the same ideas, according to Swaine's report.
Other examples included the introduction of legislation that matched up with the timeline of memos suggesting the idea and copy for a tweet that was sent via email to Gabbard, which she then posted the following day at the time instructed.
The Washington Post published one 2015 memo containing alleged comments Gabbard was directed to make in response to former President Barack Obama's State of the Union address at the time.
The statements in the memo lack direct attribution. However, Saltzburg reportedly told Swaine that "the memos were unattributed precisely to mask Butler's identity if they ever became public."
Swaine reported that Butler did not use computers, and delivered all messages verbally or transcribed through his secretaries discreetly.
The article also included allegations of online campaigns orchestrated by SIF, who created fake accounts online to champion Gabbard in comments posted on the internet.
Crucially, Swaine also noted that "Saltzburg's history with SIF would be messier than it first appeared." He wrote:
She said she had recently fallen out with the leaders of SIF, who she believed were mishandling allegations of physical and sexual abuse by some members of the organization. A few months earlier, she said, she had been arrested for briefly housing a teenage runaway who alleged abuse by a parent associated with the group. Saltzburg claimed SIF members had engineered her arrest.
A representative for SIF claimed she tried to extort $250,000 from the organization or suffer "reputational damage" and called her a "malicious liar." Salzburg claimed it was to cover damages to her family as a result of the arrest she attributed to SIF.
For further reading, we investigated a claim that Gabbard confirmed in an interview that "Operation Mockingbird," an alleged CIA campaign to manipulate the domestic press, never ended.