Gabbard’s Claim of “Foreign” Interference in Georgia Election Takes a Hit

Unsealed FBI affidavits make no mention of DNI’s claim rationalizing her involvement in Georgia election probe

When Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard showed up last month for the FBI’s seizure of election ballots cast in Fulton County, Ga., she justified her unusual presence with some extraordinary claims.

The bureau’s investigation into ballots cast during the 2020 presidential election in Georgia was “a national security issue,” she wrote in a letter to members of Congress. As the U.S. government’s top intelligence official, Gabbard asserted she had “robust authority” to oversee matters involving “foreign intelligence and counterintelligence threats.”

Her message was clear: Gabbard and the FBI had finally come across evidence that a foreign power had somehow tinkered with the 2020 election count, flipping votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, and thereby backing up the president’s repeatedly debunked claim that the election was stolen.

But today, under directions from a federal judge, the FBI unsealed two affidavits that laid out why agents were looking at the Fulton County ballots and what they hoped to prove. And contrary to Gabbard’s letter, there was not a word about any foreign meddling with the Fulton County 2020 ballots. Nor was there any mention of “malign” influence by China, Venezuela, Iran, Russia— or any other foreign power that might have explained why the country’s top intelligence official would involve herself in a domestic law enforcement operation.

Instead, the affidavits lay out a series of recycled allegations, many from arch MAGA supporters of the president, about purported discrepancies in hand counts, misplaced images of scanned ballots and other supposed irregularities that have been repeatedly raised by Trump’ and his allies for years— and discredited time and again by county and state officials, including the state’s Republican governor Brian Kemp. Indeed, the FBI investigation, according to the affidavits, was triggered in part by a referral by Kurt Olsen, a former Trump campaign lawyer and 2020 election denier who has promoted multiple unproven conspiracies about the election.

“It’s recycled rumors, lies, untruths and unproven conspiracy theories,” Rob Pitts, the chair of the Fulton County Board of Elections told reporters late Tuesday about the unsealed affidavits. “These accusations have already been debunked. But here we go again on the merry-go-around.”

But regardless of the strength of the evidence in the affidavits, the absence of any new evidence to back up Gabbard’s suggestions of foreign interference triggered renewed demands that she brief members of Congress about what exactly she was doing.

Given that the affidavits make “clear there was no foreign intelligence nexus,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he wants answer to a question he has asked time and again in recent weeks:

“So why was the Director of National Intelligence there? When the nation’s top intelligence official inserts herself into a matter with no connection to a foreign threat, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the objective was political – namely, getting back into Donald Trump’s good graces – and that her presence was meant to lay the groundwork for baseless claims of foreign interference. Americans should be deeply concerned about what someone with sweeping authority over the country’s intelligence apparatus might do to achieve that.”

No Comment

Gabbard’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But the idea that the FBI search, and Gabbard’s role, was more about planning to disrupt and undermine this fall’s congressional election—rather than finding evidence of federal crimes in an election more than five years ago— gained new traction with the release of the affidavits.

As a number of analysts pointed out, the unsealed affidavits actually don’t contain any actual evidence of any crimes, much less “probable cause” that one was committed. It names no official or any individuals suspected of fraud. It identifies nobody who might be possible defendants in any election interference. And while state officials acknowledge that small discrepancies in the vote count are inevitable when they conduct recounts by hand (there were three recounts in Georgia that all reached the same result- that Biden narrowly won the state) the affidavits never allege that any of the purported discrepancies were the result of intentional conduct.

Fulton County, meanwhile, has beefed up its legal team— hiring Washington power lawyers Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen—to challenge the legitimacy of the FBI search in court and demand a return of the seized ballots to Fulton County.

“This was all political theatre—up to and including Tulsi Gabbard showing up and skulking around in her baseball cap,” said Dana Barrett, a Fulton County Commissioner. “It’s a fishing expedition that is about setting things up for the state election board”—controlled by MAGA supporters of the president—to take over this fall’s election in Fulton County. “They will use whatever they can to manufacture what they need.”

Michael Isikoff is co-author, with Daniel Klaidman, of Find Me the Votes, a book about the 2020 election in Georgia.