Gabbard says Trump asked her to be at FBI election center raid as scrutiny intensifies

Amna Nawaz:

We're learning new details about the FBI raid on an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, last week. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard explained in a letter to Congress that President Trump personally asked her to be on site as federal agents executed that search warrant.

The incident has raised serious questions about election security and federal authority.

White House correspondent Liz Landers has been following all of this and joins us now.

So, Liz, let's start with the FBI raid in Georgia and Tulsi Gabbard's role. What more do we know about why she was there?

Liz Landers:

Well, this has been raising concerns amongst Democrats in Congress, who asked her to explain her presence. So she wrote this letter late last night defending why she was down there in Fulton County.

She said that: "The president specifically directed my observance of the execution of the Fulton County search warrant." She also in this letter confirmed a phone call that she facilitated between President Trump and FBI agents who participated in that operation, which I should underscore, Amna, is very unusual.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about this and explained a bit more about Gabbard's role this afternoon.

Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary:

This is a coordinated whole-of-government effort to ensure that our elections, again, are fair and transparent moving forward. I don't see anything wrong with the president tasking a Cabinet member to pursue an issue that most people want to see solved. Maybe you don't, but I know many Americans do want to make sure our elections are protected, and that's what Tulsi Gabbard is focused on doing.

Liz Landers:

And Fulton County election officials there are saying that they are going to sue the FBI and the Department of Justice over the search warrant that they say was not proper.

Amna Nawaz:

I'm sure you have heard there are some who are worrying this could be a sort of dry run for other places to interfere in the 2026 midterms and beyond. What are you hearing about that?

Liz Landers:

Well, one of the main concerns about what happened in Fulton County is that they seized voter rolls. That was something we saw in the warrant last week.

And there are concerns from other state election officials about this now. I spoke earlier with Tammy Patrick. She served as a Maricopa County election official for 11 years.

Tammy Patrick, National Association for Election Officials: And I think that state and local officials for a number of months now, if not for the last year, have been reviewing and getting a better understanding of what the laws are in their state around their voting materials post-election, who has access to them, what needs to be done in order for someone to gain that access, and what are the protocols for chain of custody to make sure that the integrity of the materials remains and is retained?

Liz Landers:

Patrick also added that these local election officials are working very closely with their county and state attorneys right now to make sure that they are properly maintaining voting material even after the voting concludes in case there are these kinds of operations that happen further down the line.

One more thing that I would add, Amna, Senator Mark Warner, who sent that letter to Tulsi Gabbard, he is also worried that the kinds of actions that we saw in Fulton County, seizing election materials, that that could spread to other states.

Amna Nawaz:

Meanwhile, we heard from the president yesterday in a radio interview saying Republicans should nationalize the voting in some states ahead of the midterms. He doubled down on that idea today. Here's what he said.

President Donald Trump:

Look at some of the places that -- horrible corruption on elections. And the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved. These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can't count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.

Amna Nawaz:

Liz, the question is, does the president have the power to change the election system like that?

Liz Landers:

The short answer to this is no.

And it's worth reminding people what the Constitution says specifically about how elections are supposed to be administered in this country. The Constitution is clear that states are the ones who set the time and place for federal elections. But it does give Congress the right to alter those rules.

Congress has exercised this power sparingly during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. And this also applies to congressional elections, not state elections, like governor or secretary of state elections.

This ultimately, though, does not give the president or any president unilateral power to nationalize congressional elections. That power is explicitly given to Congress. And I would add that even those in his own party, like Senate Majority Leader John Thune, was asked about the president's comments, nationalizing elections, and he said to reporters today: "I am not in favor of federalizing elections."

Amna Nawaz:

I know you have been covering this as well, but we should point out this Trump administration has been fighting for almost a year now in court to obtain private voter data from a number of states.

When you talk to election security watchers, what do they say about that?

Liz Landers:

Well, the main concern that we heard, and we heard this last week from secretaries of state who were in Washington all convening together talking about this, is that there could be personally identifying information that gets out if they're sending some of this information to the federal government and to the Department of Justice.

So about 20 states now have been sued by the Department of Justice, trying to get more of their voter roll information and some of these details that these states say, we're trying to safeguard this to make sure that people's identities don't get stolen, stuff like that.

So when we're talking to these state and local election officials, they are sort of on the front lines of fighting against what the administration is asking for right now, and they say they're doing it to protect the voters in their states.

Amna Nawaz:

That's our White House correspondent, Liz Landers, reporting tonight.

Liz, thank you.