WATCH: Gabbard, Ratcliffe, Patel testify about global threats at Senate intelligence hearing

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic senators pressed the U.S. government’s top intelligence official at annual global threat hearings Wednesday on war with Iran, including whether she advised President Donald Trump that Tehran would likely close the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passage for oil and gas from the Persian Gulf, if attacked.

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Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has repeatedly fielded questions about the intelligence she provided to the Republican president. This angered Democrats, who tried to use a rare public forum to extract answers about the expanding conflict in the Middle East.

She sidestepped it when Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked her whether she had advised Trump that Iran would attack Gulf states and close the Strait if the country was targeted by U.S. strikes.

“I have not and will not disclose internal conversations,” she said. “I will say that those of us within the intelligence community continue to provide the president with the best objective intelligence available to guide his decisions.”

Trump urged allies to help protect the waterway and ease bottlenecks to oil exports in the region. He complained on Tuesday that NATO and most other US allies had rejected his calls.

The annual congressional hearings, which include senior intelligence officials, are being held at a time of scrutiny over the US military campaign in the Middle East and growing concerns about terrorism at home after the recent attacks on a synagogue in Michigan and the University of Virginia.

The focus now is on the Iran war

The focus was on the war, and among the issues expected to be raised were reports that outdated intelligence likely led the United States to launch a missile that struck an elementary school in Iran and killed more than 165 people. The old targeting data reportedly came from the Defense Intelligence Agency, whose director, Lt. Gen. James Adams, was scheduled to testify. The White House says the strike is under investigation.

The hearings, which continue Thursday in the House of Representatives, are likely to delve deeper into the administration’s internal debate over the war, in light of Joe Kent’s resignation this week as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Kent said Tuesday that he could not “in good conscience” support war nor agree that Iran poses an imminent threat to the United States.

He watches: Who is Joe Kent, the counterterrorism official who resigned over the Iran war?

Hours later, Gabbard, whose office oversaw Kent’s work, wrote on social media that it would be up to Trump to decide whether Iran poses a threat. She did not state her own views on the raids, and confirmed at the beginning of the session that she intended to present the views of intelligence agencies, rather than her own.

Trump has sought to distance himself from Kent. CIA Director John Ratcliffe tried to do the same on Wednesday when asked whether intelligence supported Kent’s assessment that Iran did not pose an imminent threat.

He watches: What does Joe Kent’s resignation say about US intelligence and counterterrorism efforts?

“The intelligence reflects the opposite,” Ratcliffe said.

Gabbard’s existence has been called into question in local legal research

Aside from Iran, Gabbard was also pressed for her presence during the FBI’s January search of a polling center in Fulton County, Georgia, where agents seized voter data from the 2020 presidential election. Her appearance at a local law enforcement operation raised eyebrows given that Gabbard’s office aims to focus squarely on foreign threats.

Warner said it was “an organized effort to abuse her national security powers to interfere in domestic politics and potentially provide a pretext for the President’s unconstitutional efforts to control the upcoming election.”

He watches: Warner criticizes Trump and Gabbard’s involvement in FBI search of Fulton County elections office

Gabbard responded that she was present at the search at the president’s request but did not participate. But she continued to feud with Warner, who once told her: “If you wanted to ask questions, you should have stayed in Congress.”

Kash Patel’s leadership of the FBI is also under scrutiny. It was his first public appearance on Capitol Hill since a video surfaced last month showing him celebrating with members of the U.S. men’s hockey team after they won gold at the Winter Olympics.

Patel fired dozens of agents in his first year in office, raising concerns about the exodus of national security expertise at a time when the United States faces a heightened terrorism threat.

This month alone, a gunman wearing clothing emblazoned with the Iranian flag and the words “King of God” killed two people in a Texas bar. Two men who authorities say were inspired by the Islamic State have been arrested on charges of bringing powerful homemade explosives to a demonstration outside the New York City mayor’s mansion; A man previously convicted of terrorism opened fire inside a classroom at Old Dominion University in Virginia; A Lebanese-born man in Michigan drove his car to a synagogue.

The FBI said it is constantly working to protect the country.

Associated Press writers Mike Catalini and Ben Finley contributed to this report.