President Donald Trump blamed Attorney General Pam Bondi for Tulsi Gabbard being in attendance as the FBI seized 2020 election documents in Fulton County, Georgia.
It was the latest in a series of shifting claims made by the administration amid questions about why the director of national intelligence was on the scene after Gabbard informed lawmakers that she had been specifically directed by the president to observe the operation.
The president referred to Gabbard as the “Director of National and International Intelligence” during his speech Thursday morning and said she was doing a great job.
“She took a lot of heat two days ago because she went in at Pam’s insistence. She went in, and she looked at votes that want to be checked out from Georgia,” Trump said.
The president gestured toward the attorney general who was also in the room for the National Prayer Breakfast as he spoke.
“They say ‘why is she doing it?’ Right, Pam? ‘Why is she doing it?’ Because Pam wanted her to do it, and you know why? She’s smart,” Trump continued.
Democratic lawmakers raised concerns after Gabbard was in attendance last week as FBI agents seized 2020 ballots.
But in her own letter to ranking members on the congressional intelligence committees, Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, Gabbard, wrote that it was the president who requested her attendance at the raid.
“My presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security,” she wrote on February 2.
Gabbard also wrote: “the President tasked ODNI with taking all appropriate actions under my statutory authorities towards ensuring the integrity of our elections and specifically directed my observance of the execution of the Fulton County search warrant.”
Asked to clarify by the Daily Beast, a spokesperson for the Director of National Intelligence said both Trump and Bondi had asked Gabbard to be there.
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also defended Gabbard showing up in Georgia this week and suggested it was at the president’s request.
“Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by the president of the United States to oversee the sanctity and the security of our American elections,” Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday.
She argued that Gabbard was working alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and it was a “whole-of-government” effort.
“I don’t see anything wrong with the president tasking a Cabinet member to pursue an issue that most people want to see solved,” Leavitt said without mentioning Bondi.
In what has been a massive departure from the norms, The New York Times reported this week that after the search in Georgia, Trump got on the phone and directly questioned the FBI agents who took part. The call was facilitated by Gabbard. She denied that Trump asked questions.
It came after the president spent years making baseless claims of election fraud and arguing without evidence that he actually won Georgia in the 2020 election when Joe Biden won the state by more than 11,000 votes.
Trump was asked specifically why Gabbard was there by NBC News in a sit-down interview aired on Wednesday.
“I don’t know,” Trump said. “But you know, a lot of the cheating comes from, it’s international cheating.”
After a back-and-forth over foreign efforts to influence elections, Trump quipped that Gabbard was “foreign governments” to explain her participation.
The post Trump Throws Another Goon Under Bus for Tulsi’s Crazy Raid appeared first on The Daily Beast.
