Donald Trump may be getting more than he bargained for with his choice for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who is often accompanied by her New Zealand husband, Abraham Williams.

Since Trump’s shock announcement on Wednesday, critics have pounced on Gabbard’s record as a conspiracy theorist with an affinity for strongman dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

But scratch beneath the surface and another mysterious backstory emerges — Gabbard and husband Williams’ ties to an offshoot Hindu cult that has sought a backdoor into mainstream politics for decades.

Critics have labeled 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.

Unclear ties to Butler’s group, which is located between Hawaii and New Zealand, could well complicate Gabbard’s bid to secure congressional support for a Cabinet-level leadership post as Trump’s top policy adviser key to national security.

Williams, a part-Maori, part-Samoan filmmaker and surfer from Auckland, New Zealand, met Gabbard, a former army officer, during her first run for Congress in 2012 when he volunteered to film her commercials campaign.

That year, Gabbard made history by becoming the first American Samoan and practicing Hindu in Congress.

The two bonded over their shared love of water sports and began dating about 18 months later.

Abraham Williams and Tulsi Gabbard were married in a traditional Vedic ceremony on the East Shore of Kahaluu, Hawaii in 2015

Williams is a freelance director and Steadicam operator with experience in commercials, feature films, documentaries and music videos

Williams reportedly proposed to Gabbard while they were sailing into the sunset — the diamond ring was attached to a flotation device that was being towed behind them.

The practicing Hindus 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, bought them a wedding present.

Williams plays several musical instruments and works as a freelance director and Steadicam operator with experience in commercials, films, documentaries and music videos.

According to IMDB, he is 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 porter in Hawaii.

His website says he works in “diverse and challenging environments, from urban America to war zones in the Middle East.”

But much of his work these days seems to involve following Gabbard around with a camera, producing ads, promotional materials and a steady stream of social media content for her burgeoning political career.

Williams’ good looks caught the attention of fashion magazine Marie Claire, who called him “the hottest political husband”.

Meanwhile, The Oprah Magazine called him a “low-profile” partner of Gabbard’s worth following on Instagram.

According to a 2021 New York Magazine articlethe couple’s connection predates Gabbard’s 2012 congressional campaign by decades, thanks to their families’ connections 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 has sided with Donald Trump this year and could end up being his chief of intelligence

Filmmaker Williams volunteered to work on Gabbard’s 2012 campaign to represent Hawaii in the US Congress

Williams’ mother, Anya Anthony, reportedly left New Zealand and moved to the United States shortly after he was born and married his stepfather, Tim Anthony.

She served on Gabbard’s core political team in Hawaii, which is largely made up of family and longtime friends.

Gabbard, 43, and Williams have said little publicly about SIF, which has been derided as the “alt-right Hare Krishna movement.”

Neither of them responded to 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 from Hawaii, was part of this rise, but broke away from the group and formed SIF in the late 1970s.

A united SIF community of about a thousand followers has developed in Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. It reportedly includes members of the Gabbard and Williams families.

Gabbard calls Butler a “guru” and says his message is positive and uplifting.

But some former members of his group described themselves as survivors of a cult, of which Butler was the all-powerful and undisputed leader.

“I was raised to believe that 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 post since 2017 on Medium.

“The leader’s question was spiritual suicide, which was seen as worse than death.”

In a cursed interview with everything with The Independent in 2022, Gabbard’s aunt, Dr. Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, has lifted the lid on what insiders call a homophobic, often anti-Islamic and misogynistic cult.

She told the publication that her granddaughter’s career was about seeking power, and her 2020 bid for the presidency was the culmination of four decades of Butler’s efforts to seek political influence.

The Hawaiian couple have family ties and bonded over their shared love of surfing and other water sports

Gabbard’s aunt, Dr. Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, says her niece’s faith group made her power hungry

“Once again I find my niece’s apparent penchant for parroting extremist toads like Tucker Carlson and nefarious strongmen like Vladimir Putin to be problematic and deeply disturbing,” said the retired University of Hawaii professor.

“It gives me no pleasure to note that Tulsi’s only governing principle seems to be expediency, which in fact is 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” led by “cowardly revivalists” and initially registered as an independent.

She became a Fox News contributor talking about radical gender ideology and free speech and became an outspoken Trump supporter before joining the Republican Party less than a month ago.

She endorsed Trump in August and even helped him prepare for his debate with Vice President Harris.

But her political shift has been accompanied by numerous other statements and actions that have led to claims that she is feeding conspiracy theories or may even be working for Russia.

Gabbard’s past political controversies and her ties to Butler’s religious group make her an unlikely candidate to become America’s top intelligence official. 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” in choosing Gabbard because she had shown China that the US was not interested in a serious intelligence operation.