Attorney General Pam Bondi was left stammering after she was confronted about President Donald Trump’s claim she was the one who insisted Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard attend the FBI seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia.
The Trump administration has given a series of shifting—and apparently contradictory—explanations of the top intelligence official’s appearance in Fulton County alongside FBI agents last week.
In initial reports, officials said Gabbard’s attendance had not been requested by the Justice Department. Gabbard herself claimed it was at the direct request of the president, but on Thursday, Trump claimed it was at Bondi’s insistence.
“What is the case here?” a reporter asked Bondi at a press conference on Friday, noting the shifting explanation.
“Yeah, thanks for asking that. That’s interesting because DNI Gabbard and I are inseparable,” Bondi said, laughing nervously.
“We are constantly together, as are the people behind us. We constantly talk. We collaborate as a Cabinet,” Bondi stammered. “We’re all extremely close, know what each other, what we’re doing at all times, pretty much to keep not only our country safe but our world safe.”
At times, she appeared to be struggling to find the words. Her voice shook. She opened and closed her mouth, and she shook her head as nothing came out.
“She was down there with Deputy Director Andrew Bailey of the FBI,” Bondi sputtered before giving up on her incoherent ramble.
“And I’m not going to talk about any other details of that matter right now because Georgia’s a very important issue to us,” Bondi quickly added.
The reporter tried to press on whether Bondi sent her down to Georgia.
“She was there,” Bondi said before taking a deep breath as she searched for words. “We’re inseparable. That’s all I’ll say.”
Asked moments later if she was concerned Gabbard’s presence could taint the FBI investigation in Georgia, Bondi replied “absolutely not.”
She appeared to be throwing the FBI deputy director under the bus by repeating her insistence that Bailey was taking the lead with the raid in Georgia, before beating a hasty retreat from the room.
At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Trump claimed Bondi had sent Gabbard in.
“She took a lot of heat two days ago because she went in at Pam’s insistence,” Trump said.
But in her own letter to Democratic lawmakers earlier this week defending her attendance at the raid, Gabbard wrote that she was directed to go to Georgia by the president.
“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 that the president “specifically directed my observance of the execution of the Fulton County search warrant.”
A spokesperson for her office insisted to the Daily Beast that the two claims were not contradictory and that both the president and attorney general asked her to be there.
However, grilled at the press briefing on Thursday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt avoided giving a direct answer on whether the president himself directed her go down to Georgia and accused the media of getting “caught up with the semantics.”
Trump himself was asked directly why Gabbard was at the raid during his sit-down interview with NBC News on Wednesday.
“I don’t know,” Trump immediately said, before proceeding to ramble about election “cheating.”
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