Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard was present at the FBI search of a Fulton County, Georgia, election center as part of Gabbard’s months-long investigation into election integrity, Breitbart News has learned.
“Director Gabbard recognizes that election security is essential for the integrity of our republic and our nation’s security. As DNI, she has a vital role in identifying vulnerabilities in our critical infrastructure and protecting against exploitation,” DNI Press Secretary Olivia Coleman told Breitbart News.
“We know through intelligence and public reporting that electronic voting systems have been and are vulnerable to exploitation. 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,” Coleman added.
Gabbard, the nation’s top spy chief, has spent months investigating the results of the 2020 presidential election, which led her to an FBI search of an election center in Fulton County, Georgia.
FBI agents sought records relating to the 2020 presidential election, with the warrant authorizing officials to search for physical ballots, voter rolls from that year, ballot images created by scanning ballots, and tabulator tapes from every voting machine in the county. The search is part of an investigation into possible violations of federal law against destroying election records and another statute dealing with the submission of fraudulent votes.
The FBI search as part of the president’s efforts to investigate election fraud elicited a strong and swift reaction from Democrats, including Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA).
Ossoff said on Wednesday, “He is wielding the American government as an instrument of personal revenge and personal power, in a way completely unprecedented for the American presidency.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said the FBI search amounted to a “domestic political stunt” that would “undermine our democracy.”
Despite the Democrats’ protestations, federal law grants the DNI with leading efforts to secure American elections.
Federal law assigns DNI Gabbard and her office the responsibility to lead counterintelligence matters regarding election security, which includes assessing the potential risks to election voting systems, voter registration databases, and foreign interference. DNI Gabbard supports the White House’s interagency actions to secure the country’s elections through intelligence analysis, routing, collaborating with agencies and departments, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Justice (DOJ), and the FBI, to protect election infrastructure.
Specifically, 50 U.S.C. § 3371d authorizes DNI to designate and oversee a National Counterintelligence Officer within the National Counterintelligence and Security Center to lead, manage, and coordinate counterintelligence matters related to election security.
An ODNI official said American intelligence has found that foreign actors are developing more and more sophisticated cyber capabilities that target critical infrastructure, which reinforces the need for the ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) to ensure that these efforts do not impact the election process.
Gabbard has regularly briefed President Donald Trump and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles about her investigation into election integrity, along with other senior officials involved, including senior Justice Department officials and others.
Reports have suggested that Gabbard is expected to prepare a report on her investigation; the administration has discussed executive orders on voting ahead of the midterm elections.
“President 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,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Since April, DNI Gabbard has been talking about election security. This includes:
- Gabbard said on April 10, “I’ve got a long list of things that we’re investigating. We have the best of the best going after this. Election integrity being one of them. We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time and vulnerable to exploitation, to manipulate the results of the votes being cast, which further drives forward your mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections.”
- The DNI said on April 30, “We have more coming for the assassination of Bobby’s father, Senator Kennedy, and MLK’s assassination, and we continue our extensive investigations around exposing the very serious issues we have related to election integrity, illegal abuses of FISA, Crossfire Hurricane, and others.”
- Gabbard then emphasized on July 24, “President Trump nominated me for as Director of National Intelligence to, to look for the truth around these issues related to election integrity. This is something that I worked on a lot as a member of Congress. This is something of paramount importance, obviously, to President Trump, but really to the American people to have faith and trust in the integrity of our democratic republic. And so we’ve really spent the last few months since I’ve been on this job, focused on finding the truth very simply, finding the truth to bring about transparency and accountability. I know that our team, again on multiple issues, including on election integrity, we’re going to continue to investigate to find the truth and tell the truth.”
“When we look at the future of our country as a democratic republic, and the American people’s ability to have faith that when they go and cast a vote at the ballot box, that the will of the people will be respected by those in government, whether they be Democrats or Republicans. This is literally what is at stake here,” Gabbard said in July.