Tulsi Gabbard inserts herself into 2020 election fraud probe

(CNN) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has taken the extraordinary step of inserting herself into a federal probe of the 2020 election as she hunts for elusive evidence of voter fraud.

Gabbard was on the scene Wednesday after FBI agents executed a search warrant for the Fulton County elections office, near Atlanta. The search was related to an effort by the Justice Department to seize voting data and search for alleged fraud in the county, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The move appears to provide an opportunity for Gabbard to curry favor with President Donald Trump by supporting his false but unrelenting claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Trump on Thursday night praised Gabbard for “working very hard to try to keep the election safe” when asked by CNN why she was present during the search. “You’ll see some interesting things happening,” Trump said. “They’ve been trying to get there for a long time.”

There have been suggestions Gabbard had fallen out of favor with the president, and CNN previously reported that she was left out of at least one key discussion among senior officials over Iran last year as Trump saw her as “off-message” on Middle East policy.

States run elections, not the federal government. The director of national intelligence oversees all foreign intelligence collection. Their traditional role in US elections is to protect them from foreign interference.

Focus on Fulton County

The strong suspicion among Georgia election officials, a source close to those officials told CNN, is that Gabbard is searching for a connection between the records the FBI seized in Fulton County and foreign interference in the 2020 election. Georgia officials are bracing for the possibility that Gabbard will try to resurrect dubious claims about Chinese interference in the 2020 election, the source said.

If there is a foreign nexus to the Trump administration’s probe of Fulton County, officials haven’t revealed it. Georgia was the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

“We know through intelligence and public reporting that electronic voting systems have been and are vulnerable to exploitation,” a DNI spokesperson said in a statement. “President Trump’s directive to secure our elections was clear, and DNI Gabbard has and will continue to take actions within her authorities, alongside our interagency partners, to support ensuring the integrity of our elections.”

The spokesperson did not respond when CNN asked what foreign nexus there was to the Fulton County probe.

“Federal law clearly assigns the DNI and her office with the statutory responsibility to lead counterintelligence matters related to election security, which includes assessing risks to election voting systems, software, voter registration databases and more … and analyzing foreign interference,” an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.

Gabbard was slated to speak to the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) on Friday afternoon but ultimately did not attend the conference “due to scheduling conflicts,” a NASS spokesperson said. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem were also set to appear at the conference, a White House official said this week. But none ultimately showed.

Anticipation had built throughout the day Friday among election officials of both parties that someone from the Trump administration would explain what the administration was doing in Fulton County. No explanation came.

The NASS conference is normally a staid affair where election officials discuss best practices and hear about legitimate foreign threats to elections.

Democrats are perplexed and angry

Democratic election officials reacted with a mix of rage and bewilderment to Gabbard’s Fulton County visit.

“In what world would Tulsi Gabbard have any role in addressing us?” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told CNN. “And I think the answer is probably why she’s in Georgia. It’s probably some election denialism conspiracy BS that she’s going to spout.”

Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas, another Democrat, told CNN on Thursday that she planned to boycott Gabbard’s appearance when it was still on the books. Thomas said she was “angry” that Trump cabinet members who had a history of questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election or attacking election administrators were even invited to the conference.

Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray praised the Trump administration’s work on elections when asked for comment about the Fulton County probe. “I’m going to talk with the DNI about that, and I’m excited to hear their findings,” Gray, a Republican, told reporters on Friday.

Election experts said Gabbard’s trip to Fulton County could be a boon for any criminal defense.

“Director Gabbard’s presence, without any legal authority to be [in Fulton County], raises serious questions about this collection of alleged evidence,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, which works with election officials of both parties.

“If criminal charges are ever brought, and I think there’s nearly zero chance of that, I’d expect any defense counsel to make a significant issue of her presence and interference,” Becker told CNN.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, slammed Gabard’s presence in Fulton County.

Either Gabbard “believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus – in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees ‘fully and currently informed’ of relevant national security concerns,” Warner said.

The other possibility, Warner’s statement continued, is Gabbard “is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for the office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy.”

Gabbard’s presence in Fulton County “shouldn’t be questioned” because election integrity is “a big part of her job,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche asserted at a press conference Friday when asked about Gabbard’s presence in Fulton County.

“This administration coordinates everything we do as a group,” Blanche said.

CNN’s Marshall Cohen contributed reporting.

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