President Donald Trump admitted in a Wednesday interview that he had no idea why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present at the FBI’s raid on a Georgia election facility last week.
Asked by NBC News’ Tom Llamas why Gabbard was there, Trump replied, “I don’t know, but a lot of the cheating comes from—it’s international cheating.” He then asked Llamas, “Do you think China tries to influence our election?”
“We know that foreign governments try to influence a lot of things in this country,” Llamas replied, leading Trump to conclude, “She’s foreign governments.”
The comments appeared to contradict Gabbard’s explanation, which she offered on Tuesday, claiming that her presence was requested by the president.
The Daily Beast has contacted Gabbard’s office for comment.
The raid, which saw the FBI seize materials relating to the 2020 election, including ballots and computers, was conducted as part of the ongoing investigation into claims of election fraud, amplified by Trump, who has continued to maintain that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Gabbard was photographed at the raid, which took place on Jan. 28 at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Georgia, flanked by FBI agents, prompting Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, to ask what she was doing there.
“Why is Tulsi Gabbard at an FBI raid on an election office in Fulton County?” Warner asked on X before offering two possible reasons for her presence.
“Either Director 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 – 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.”
“Either is a serious breach of trust that further underscores why she is totally unqualified to hold a position that demands sound judgment, apolitical independence, and a singular focus on keeping Americans safe,” Warner concluded.
In a letter to Warner and Rep. Jim Himes shared to social media on Monday night, Gabbard offered up an explanation for her presence at the raid, claiming it was at the president’s request.
“For a brief period of time, I accompanied FBI Deputy Director Bailey and Atlanta Acting Special Agent in Charge Pete Ellis in observing FBI personnel executing that search warrant, issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia pursuant to a probable cause finding,” Gabbard wrote.
“My presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counterintelligence (CI), foreign and other malign influence and cybersecurity.”
Contrary to the blatantly false and slanderous accusations being made against me by Members of Congress and their friends in the propaganda media, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has and will continue to take action under my statutory authorities to secure our… pic.twitter.com/eX4Kdnp8oU
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) February 3, 2026
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was also unable to provide an explanation for Gabbard’s presence at the raid, telling CNN’s Dana Bash on Monday, “I don’t know why the director was there.”
“She is not part of the grand jury investigation,” he continued, adding, “but she is for sure a key part of our efforts at election integrity and making sure that we have free and fair elections.”
In addition, people with knowledge of the raid told the New York Times that her presence turned heads considering “her role overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies does not include on-site involvement in criminal investigative work.”
Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. demanded the return of the seized documents and announced that the county would be filing a lawsuit in response to the raid.
“I have asked the county attorney to take any and all steps available to fight this criminal search warrant,” Arrington said on Monday.
“The search warrant is not proper, but there are ways that we can limit it. We want to ask for forensic accounting; we want the documents to stay in the State of Georgia under seal; and we want to do whatever we can to protect voter information.”
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