President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence has seized voting machines in Puerto Rico as part of the administration’s ongoing effort to find “proof” of voter fraud.
Tulsi Gabbard has apparently made it her mission to advance Trump’s personal grievances, including his repeatedly debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Gabbard, 44, was on site last week as Kash Patel’s FBI raided an election center outside Atlanta, Georgia, for materials related to Trump’s electoral loss.
Now, her Office of the Director of National Intelligence has confirmed that it also took the extraordinary step of seizing an unspecified number of voting machines from Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that elects non-voting representatives in Congress, CNN reported.
The ODNI claimed in a statement that it had found “extremely concerning” cybersecurity and operational deployment practices with the voting machines, but didn’t provide any evidence, according to CNN.
The operation took place in May of last year, according to Reuters.
Sources told both Reuters and CNN that it was completely unprecedented for the ODNI, which coordinates intelligence from across the other 17 agencies in the U.S. intelligence community, to be involved in investigating a sensitive domestic matter.
Election security is usually handled by law enforcement, not U.S. intelligence services.
“This is well beyond what ODNI has the authority or expertise to do,” a former senior intelligence official who has worked on election security told CNN. “This is amateur hour.”
The goal appears to be to “intimidate and denigrate election officials,” while further weakening trust in the U.S. election system, said David Becker, who leads the nonprofit and nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the ODNI for comment.
Voting machines are subject to regular testing and strict chain of custody, Becker told CNN. They count paper ballots that are then audited and recounted to confirm the original counts. Numerous audits and court rulings have debunked Trump’s claims of fraud during the 2020 election.
Gabbard was not physically present during the operation in Puerto Rico, according to Reuters.
She was, however, spotted at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, a warehouse-like facility, as FBI agents seized boxes of ballots, computers, and voter rolls related to the 2020 election.
Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, blasted her participation as a “political stunt.”
Either Gabbard really believed there was a foreign intelligence connection to the election probe—which she failed to communicate to congressional intelligence committees, as required by law—or she “inject[ed] the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy,” he said.
After Warner and Rep. Jim Hines, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, sent a letter to Gabbard demanding an explanation, she responded that her presence “was requested by the president.”
She also pointed to her “broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counterintelligence, foreign and other malign influence, and cybersecurity.”
Trump, however, said in an interview Wednesday with NBC News that he had no idea why Gabbard was at the raid. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also told CNN’s Dana Bash on Monday that he didn’t know the reason for her involvement.
Gabbard seems to have a habit of generating headlines during politically fraught moments for Trump.
In July, as the administration was facing widespread fury over the Justice Department’s failure to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, Gabbard announced she had uncovered a “treasonous conspiracy” and “years-long coup” against Trump involving top Obama administration officials.
Nothing ultimately came of the supposed revelations, but for a brief moment Trump crowned Gabbard the “hottest” person in his administration over the unfounded allegations.
Last week’s raid came as the administration was trying to contain public outrage over the administration’s violent immigration enforcement tactics, which left two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, dead at the hands of federal agents.
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