Report: Trump directed Gabbard to take part in FBI raid on Fulton County election hub

President Donald Trump ordered Tulsi Gabbard, the U.S.’s top intelligence official, to take part in the FBI’s extraordinary raid on an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, last week, the New York Times reported citing U.S. officials.

The Times’ reporting undercuts the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) public explanation that Gabbard’s presence at the election hub during the search was essentially a matter of coincidence. Gabbard is the director of national intelligence, which makes her involvement in a county-level election issue highly unusual.

The report also indicates that Trump is personally involved and heavily invested in the FBI’s investigation into Fulton County, which has long been the top target of his multi-year, conspiracy theory-fueled campaign against the 2020 presidential election, which he lost.

The FBI’s unprecedented seizure of 2020 election ballots in Fulton County last week was widely denounced as a major assault on American democracy by Democrats and election officials across the country, while local officials and legal experts have questioned the legality of the search.

The raid has also further inflamed fears of federal interference in the upcoming midterm elections.

Gabbard’s involvement in particular raised alarm bells. It suggests that the DOJ and FBI intend to allege that foreign interference led to Trump’s loss in Georgia in 2020 — a long debunked, far-right conspiracy theory that Trump has recently amplified. 

Before the raid, Trump personally ordered Gabbard to go to Atlanta for the search and coordinated her actions with Andrew Bailey, a co-deputy director of the FBI, according to the Times.

That contradicts Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s claims about Gabbard’s role in the raid and indicates she’s far more involved in the investigation than previously thought.

On Friday, Blanche claimed that she attended the raid only because she “happened to be present in Atlanta” at the time.

“The fact that she was presenting in Atlanta that day, you know, it is something that should not surprise anyone,” Blanche said after noting that Gabbard isn’t an employee of the DOJ or FBI.

“I don’t know why the director was there,” Blanche said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “She is not part of the grand jury investigation, but she is for sure a key part of our efforts at election integrity and making sure that we have free and fair elections.”

Following the raid, Gabbard organized a phone call between the president and some of the agents who executed the raid, the Times also reported. During the conversation, Trump reportedly asked the agents questions while praising and thanking them for their work on the inquiry.

Trump personally speaking with agents and coordinating actions directly affecting their investigation could undermine any criminal case that stems from the FBI’s probe.

Defense counsels could cite Trump’s personal involvement as evidence in motions to dismiss based on vindictive prosecution. In a trial, they could also attempt to get testimony from the agents who spoke with Trump.

Gabbard is leading the Trump administration’s effort to re-examine the 2020 election and is indeed pursuing claims it was stolen from Trump due to foreign government interference, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing White House officials.

To that end, she has started looking at voting machines and data from swing states. She has not presented the public with any evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 vote but is expected to prepare a report on her work.