{"id":18391,"date":"2026-01-30T00:01:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/gabbards-role-at-georgia-fbi-raid-angers-dems-puzzles-election-officials\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T00:01:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:01:37","slug":"gabbards-role-at-georgia-fbi-raid-angers-dems-puzzles-election-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/gabbards-role-at-georgia-fbi-raid-angers-dems-puzzles-election-officials\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabbard\u2019s role at Georgia FBI raid angers Dems, puzzles election officials"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Democrats, election experts and even some members of the Trump administration expressed alarm and bewilderment about why Tulsi Gabbard was on the scene as the FBI raided a Georgia election office that has been at the center of Donald Trump\u2019s debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen.<\/p>\n

Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was photographed late Wednesday<\/a> outside the Fulton County elections office near Atlanta, Georgia, as the FBI executed a search warrant<\/a> to seize ballots and other records related to the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

As DNI, Gabbard has no domestic law enforcement authority and is not typically involved in criminal investigations, a reality that alarmed many Democrats on Capitol Hill \u2014 and even puzzled some Trump officials. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy constituents in Georgia and I think much of the American public are quite reasonably alarmed in asking questions after the director of national intelligence was spotted bizarrely and personally lurking in an FBI evidence truck in Fulton County, Georgia, yesterday,\u201d Sen. Jon Ossoff<\/a> (D-Ga.) said during an unrelated Senate hearing Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday<\/a> that Gabbard was investigating the 2020 election, and has regularly briefed Trump and other administration officials about her search. \u201cPresident Trump and his entire team are committed to ensuring a U.S. election can never, ever be rigged again. Director Gabbard is playing a key lead role in this important effort,\u201d Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told The Journal.<\/p>\n

Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard, confirmed the DNI was on the scene in Atlanta. She did not immediately respond to follow-up inquiries about her reported probe of the 2020 vote.<\/p>\n

Despite concerns raised by Democrats, Gabbard appears to be taking on a more expansive public role in American elections. On Thursday, White House aide Jared Borg told a group of election officials that Gabbard \u2014 alongside Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi \u2014 is set to address the winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State on Friday.<\/p>\n

Trump has long fixated on unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in Georgia in the aftermath of the 2020 election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden. He has continued to falsely suggest that the election was stolen since returning to the White House, including in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. <\/p>\n

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle defended Gabbard in an emailed statement. \u201cDirector Gabbard has a pivotal role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections against interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases and election infrastructure,\u201d he wrote. \u201cShe has and will continue to take action on President Trump\u2019s directive to secure our elections and work with our interagency partners to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump spent much of the morning amplifying claims that the Georgia vote was rigged on Truth Social, and even called attention to Gabbard\u2019s role<\/a> in Wednesday\u2019s raid. <\/p>\n

Gabbard\u2019s role remains confusing to some in the administration. Two current Justice Department officials and one Trump administration official said they were also puzzled by Gabbard\u2019s presence in Fulton County. \u201cIt remains a mystery to me why she would need to be there,\u201d said the administration official, who, like others interviewed, was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. <\/p>\n

Sen. Mark Warner<\/a>, (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, argued on X Wednesday<\/a> that there \u201care only two explanations\u201d for Gabbard\u2019s presence in the raid.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither Director Gabbard believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus \u2014 in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees \u2018fully and currently informed\u2019 of relevant national security concerns \u2014 or she 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,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Warner and House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) wrote to Gabbard Thursday<\/a> to request briefings for both panels about the legal basis, scope, and justification of her participation in the raid.<\/p>\n

Sen. Alex Padilla<\/a> (D-Calif.), who before entering Congress was California\u2019s chief election official, told a panel at NASS on Thursday that Gabbard\u2019s presence at the raid should be a reminder about \u201cthe urgency of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess they\u2019re still searching for 11,000 more votes,\u201d he quipped, referencing a call Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after losing the 2020 election. \u201cBut it should be a reminder \u2014 or a wake up \u2014 that this can happen at any point once again between now and this coming November.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabbard\u2019s appearance at the raid led some Democrats to believe she wanted to be there to claim credit for it publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the head of a department participates in something, it’s about PR, not about process and the law,\u201d Sen. Jack Reed<\/a> (D-R.I.) told Blue Light News. \u201cIf they have evidence, they want evidence and they have a valid warrant, and you let the professionals go in and do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Gabbard has veered in and out of the good graces of Trump during her tenure as DNI, she appeared to hit a high point last summer<\/a> when she alleged that senior U.S. intelligence officials under then-President Barack Obama were guilty of treason because they had fabricated intelligence about Russian meddling in the 2016 election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump said last week that individuals who played a role in that year\u2019s vote will soon be prosecuted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told reporters on Thursday that Gabbard\u2019s Georgia appearance only sparks more concerns that the raid \u201cis an attempt to fuel false claims and disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no reason for the director of national intelligence to be in any kind of voting site,\u201d he said. \u201cShe has neither the authority nor the competence to assess anything in that voting site. And so it\u2019s incredibly troubling to see something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Ivory, a Fulton County commissioner, said Thursday that federal officials took 700 boxes of ballots and \u201cancillary\u201d materials from the 2020 election. The county\u2019s attorney, she said, is \u201cworking with a group of local and national lawyers” to formulate a legal response.<\/p>\n

The first DOJ official said the ballots are now being stored at an FBI facility in Winchester, Virginia.<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did not respond to requests for comment. In 2020, Raffensperger famously rebuffed<\/a> Trump\u2019s pressure campaign to \u201cfind\u201d enough votes to flip the state\u2019s election for him.<\/p>\n

The two DOJ officials said the FBI received a heads up that Gabbard would be on site for the raid. They said her participation did not bother FBI Director Kash Patel or other bureau officials.<\/p>\n

Democrats, however, worry more broadly that the raid could have a chilling effect on future elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe facts are clear, Trump lost, and he has to accept that and move on with his life,\u201d Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in an interview. \u201cAnd everyone in his administration should do the same, instead of terrorizing election officials and interfering with our work to simply just prepare for the midterm elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erin Doherty and Andrew Howard contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats, election experts and even some members of the Trump administration expressed alarm and bewilderment about why Tulsi Gabbard was on the scene as the FBI raided a Georgia election office that has been at the center of Donald Trump\u2019s debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}