Tulsi Gabbard under scrutiny for showing up at FBI raid of Georgia election hub

WASHINGTON — When President Donald Trump watched live the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was not in the room. Two days earlier, she posted photos of herself on a Hawaii beach at sunset practicing yoga, sending her wishes for “peace” in the new year.

The fact that she appeared to be on vacation in the lead-up to such a sensitive, high-stakes military operation seems to underscore the extent to which she has been sidelined by the administration.

But there she was Wednesday, at an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, as FBI agents conducted a raid looking for ballots for the 2020 presidential election, which Trump falsely claimed he won.

Gabbard’s presence confounded national security experts and raised questions about whether she was seeking new relevance in the eyes of a president who had soured on her.

“Even though there was criminal activity during Georgia’s 2020 election – despite repeated investigations showing there was none – this is still a purely domestic problem – not one involving foreign countries,” a former national security official said. “The director of national intelligence had nothing to do with this.”

Accompanying FBI agents during a raid is a first for the head of American intelligence, whose mission is to track threats emanating from foreign adversaries. In his role as overseer of the nation’s spy agencies, he is prohibited by law from participating in domestic law enforcement operations. His predecessors were careful to keep their distance from Justice Department business or partisan politics.

Asked why she was visiting Georgia, a senior administration official said: “Director Gabbard plays a central role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections from interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases, and election infrastructure. »

The official added: “She has taken and will continue to take actions consistent with President Trump’s directive to secure our elections and to work with our interagency partners to do so.” »

Two senior officials with knowledge of the matter said Gabbard’s presence in Fulton County was unnecessary and was not requested by the Justice Department. But they added that Gabbard was simply observing the execution of the FBI search warrant and that there was nothing illegal in her presence.

“This appears to be an attempt to make itself relevant,” one official said. “It’s so strange.”

On Thursday evening, Trump responded to a reporter’s question about whether Gabbard was present during the raid.

“She works very hard to keep the election secure, and she’s done a very good job,” Trump said at the Kennedy Center before the premiere of a documentary about first lady Melania Trump. “You get a signed order from a judge in Georgia, and you’re going to see some interesting things happen. They’ve been trying to achieve this for a long time.”

At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sharply criticized Gabbard’s decision to travel to Fulton County for the FBI research, saying it was part of a trend by senior officials to blur the line between intelligence work and domestic politics.

Warner said there were only two explanations for the national intelligence director’s trip: Either Gabbard believed the matter had a foreign intelligence nexus, and she failed to meet her legal obligation to brief congressional committees, or she was tarnishing the nonpartisan reputation of the intelligence agencies with a “domestic political operation designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy.”

“Either scenario,” Warner added, “represents a grave breach of trust and dereliction of the solemn duty she occupies.”

In a letter to Gabbard, Warner and the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, asked the director of national intelligence to brief lawmakers as part of her legal obligation to keep committees fully informed on relevant intelligence issues.

“It is also deeply concerning that you participated in this national law enforcement action,” the two lawmakers said in a letter to Gabbard. “The intelligence community should be focused on foreign threats and, as you yourself have testified, when these intelligence authorities turn inward, the results can be devastating to the privacy and civil liberties of Americans. »

During Trump’s first term, his administration mounted efforts across the government to identify and counter foreign adversaries who were trying to undermine U.S. elections. But Gabbard last year dismantled a center designed to track foreign actors seeking to interfere in U.S. elections or institutions, and the Justice Department and State Department have also closed similar offices.

Over the past year, Gabbard has clashed with two of her administration counterparts, FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, in what officials described as a struggle for influence within the administration.

In October, the FBI strongly opposed a proposal by some House lawmakers to strip the bureau of its authority over counterintelligence operations and place them in Gabbard’s office, warning that the plan would sow confusion and harm national security. Ultimately, the FBI retained its primary authority over counterintelligence.

The search of the Fulton County election center follows Trump’s repeated and baseless claims that the 2020 election result was fraudulent and that he was the rightful winner, not Joe Biden.

During his speech this month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump raised the issue with foreign and business leaders in the audience, saying, “People will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”

Trump and his supporters have offered various theories — without detailed evidence — for why they claim the 2020 election was “rigged,” none of which has been upheld in a series of lawsuits. Some Trump allies have falsely claimed foreign actors were involved, without providing details.

“It’s unclear what the connection is between foreign intelligence and the issuance of an FBI search warrant at an election meeting in Atlanta,” said Kevin Carroll, a former CIA officer and now a national security attorney. “In the absence of such a connection, ODNI’s involvement in this matter is erroneous and potentially even illegal” if it participated in the search.

He added: “It is also inappropriate for a Cabinet official to participate in a law enforcement operation. Among other things, the director is now potentially a witness of fact in any suppression hearing or trial related to evidence seized by the office.”