All posts tagged "tulsi gabbard"

'Rumor mill is swirling' as MAGA women reportedly 'on edge' over who Trump will cut next

MAGA women in the Trump cabinet were reportedly "on edge" Friday after President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Bondi's ousting followed the removal and demotion of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as questions arise over who might get the axe next, according to The Swamp, the Daily Beast's Substack.

"Pam Bondi’s ouster has sparked a mild panic across Washington as officials and aides wonder: Who’s next? And will it be another woman?" The Swamp reported. "While Bondi’s sacking was somewhat inevitable after her botched handling of the Epstein files and her failure to successfully prosecute Trump’s enemies, the fact it comes merely weeks after Kristi Noem was replaced by Markwayne Mullin hasn’t gone unnoticed. Now, the rumor mill is swirling over Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer."

It's unclear whether Trump intends to cut Gabbard or Chavez-DeRemer — but both members of the administration have come under scrutiny over different concerns.

"Gabbard has been at odds with Trump over Iran, while Trump is reportedly unhappy with Chavez-DeRemer’s performance," according to The Swamp.

Those weren't the only Trump administration officials in hot water.

"But there have also been other women in Trump’s orbit who haven’t fared well — just ask Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who was forced to give up a plum post as UN ambassador so Trump could keep his razor thin GOP House majority," The Swamp reported. "Or MAGA loyalist Kari Lake, who wanted a senior role in Trump’s cabinet and ended up with the headache of trying to overhaul The Voice Of America. Even Education Secretary Linda McMahon has effectively been hobbled given the dismantling of her department. Coincidence or trend?"

'Train wreck': Senator fed-up as 'flailing' Trump admin can't keep its Iran story straight

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) pointed out on Wednesday that after he questioned National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, it appeared that the Trump administration still couldn't get its story straight on what prompted the Iran war.

The top Democrat and veteran spoke with CNN anchor Kasie Hunt after the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing with Gabbard and several other senior intelligence officials, who were asked about global threats as the Trump administration has continued to send mixed messages about the military operation in the Middle East and its objectives.

Lawmakers pressed the administration members to clarify whether the Trump administration knew the pending economic fallout, including rising gas prices or the Iranian regime's move to close the vital shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz. They also wanted clarification over claims that Iran posed an "imminent threat," something the Trump administration has cited in the last several weeks.

Hunt asked Kelly if the Trump administration had underestimated how Iranians would respond to the military strikes.

"They're flailing. This has been a train wreck," Kelly said. "They have not been able to tell the American people, you know, why we are in this fight. You know, what is the strategic goal? What is the plan? What's the timeline? How do you get out of it? And today we were trying to figure out what did the president know and when did he know it? And was he briefed on something pretty basic, which was the Strait of Hormuz, whether or not the Iranians would try to shut it down. And we've gotten different answers from the White House."

Kelly also pointed out how the word "imminent" means something is about to happen, yet the Trump administration had gone back and forth, saying Iran was expecting to strike the United States and its allies in "the near future," which is not what the word "imminent" actually means.

"And I even got to the point I was trying to make this very simple for the DNI, for Tulsi Gabbard," Kelly said. "Was there a request for a brief, or did you offer a brief on the Strait of Hormuz? I didn't even ask her if it was given or what was in it. She would not even answer that question."

He explained that getting to the truth hasn't been a problem with just Gabbard, but also with other Trump cabinet members and White House insiders.

"And this is what happens when you put a lot of yes people in an administration where their number one priority is to please the commander in chief," Kelly added. "And when you do that, this is why this is a lot different than Donald Trump's first term with a lot of very professional people around him. This is what you get. You get a lot of non-answers, you get a lot of just trying to get around some pretty basic things."

Intelligence head Tulsi Gabbard amazes with claim it's not her job to determine threats

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) pushed National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard to answer questions about President Donald Trump's knowledge of economic fallout prior to the Iran war during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday.

Gabbard tried to dodge his questions over what prompted the military strikes in Iran, and she appeared to contradict Trump's justifications and objectives behind launching the joint U.S.-Israeli operation.

"Was it the intelligence community's assessment that, nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no?" Ossoff asked.

"It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. That is up to the president based on a volume of information that he receives," Gabbard said.

Ossoff pushed back on Gabbard's claims.

"No, it is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States," Ossoff said. "This is the worldwide threats hearing where, as you noted in your opening testimony quote, you represent the IC's assessment of threats. You are here to represent the IC's assessment of threats. That's a quote from your own opening statement. And so my question is, as you're here to present the IC's assessment of threats, was it the assessment of the intelligence community that, as the White House claimed on March 1st, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime, yes or no?"

"Once again, senator, the intelligence community has provided the inputs that make up this annual threat assessment," Gabbard said, not answering Ossoff's question.

"You won't answer the question," Ossoff said.

"It is the nature of the imminent threat that the president has to make that determination based on a collection and volume of information and intelligence that he is provided with," Gabbard said.

Ossoff interjected with a sharp response.

"You're here to be timely, objective and independent of political considerations," Ossoff said.

"That's exactly what I'm doing," Gabbard responded.

Ossoff then called Gabbard out, alleging that she was not answering questions honestly.

"No, you're evading a question because to provide a candid response to the committee would contradict a statement from the White House," Ossoff said.

Tulsi Gabbard accused of planting a mole for 'sinister' Trump protection scheme: analyst

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has come under fire over an explosive whistleblower complaint and allegations that she is protecting the Trump family — and that she even planted a mole to obstruct the investigation, according to an analyst Thursday.

Salon's Jesselyn Radack described multiple problems and conflicts of interest that have surfaced around Gabbard's alleged mismanagement of the complaint, which are tied to claims that President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner influenced the president over Iran. The complaint itself was apparently "locked in a safe," according to a Wall Street Journal report last month.

"We don’t know the substance of the intelligence report underlying the whistleblower complaint, but the government claims it is 'exquisitely' classified, which raises an immediate problem: That’s not a real classification level," Radack wrote. "The report apparently involves an intelligence service intercepting a conversation between two foreign nationals about Iran and Jared Kushner’s influence on his father-in-law, the president. At the time, the Trump administration was considering a strike on Iran, which in fact occurred at the end of June 2025."

Gabbard reportedly delayed investigating the complaint amid "ongoing rumors concerning the state of her relationship with Trump, which has appeared to be in constant flux," Radack explained.

"Instead of providing guidance, Gabbard — the former champion of whistleblowers — apparently sat on the complaint for eight months and stonewalled the whistleblower and their lawyer," Radack wrote.

She also reportedly made potentially "sinister" moves, "rather than innocent, bureaucratic snafus."

"And worse, during this delay, she reportedly planted a mole in the ICIG’s office to snitch about the situation directly to her — obviously compromising the office’s independence," Radack wrote.

Gabbard has appeared to be acting as a protector of the Trump family — instead of focusing on national intelligence concerns.

"We don’t know why Gabbard continues to aggressively obstruct this whistleblower complaint," Radack added. "It sounds like she’s more concerned with protecting Jared Kushner, and perhaps Trump himself, than the public she’s supposed to serve. But we do know this: The ICWPA system for intelligence community whistleblowers depends on the knowledge, trust, credibility and good faith of the director of national intelligence. It’s a fatal flaw to make that person an intermediary, much less a gatekeeper, on a whistleblower’s path to congressional oversight."

Trump intel chief election meddling should 'freak everybody out,' top Dems shout

WASHINGTON — On Capitol Hill, questions keep mounting about Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s 2020 election investigation and whether she’s using foreign surveillance officers and resources on U.S. soil.

Democrats demanding answers about why DNI Gabbard was present for the hugely controversial FBI raid on an election office in Fulton County, Georgia last month are eager to grill her when she publicly testifies before the Senate intelligence Committee in March.

“It raises serious questions, because it would be a violation, in some cases, of laws if our foreign intelligence service was operating in the United States,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) told Raw Story on Capitol Hill.

As the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reed’s an ex-officio member of the Intelligence Committee.

“The CIA clearly can't do anything [on U.S. soil], but no, it's just there's no explanation for” Gabbard’s actions, he said.

“The Department of Justice issues a warrant, etc, and you have an intelligence official down there? I don't know what's happened.”

Reed’s far from alone, as questions swirl and the administration remains mostly mum.

‘The plan all along’

As President Donald Trump fixates on his defeat by former President Joe Biden in 2020 and repeats disproved claims about election fraud in that contest, reports that Gabbard’s office last year took control of and tested voting machines in Puerto Rico only raised fears of interference in this year’s midterm elections.

“I've heard people indicate that she's trying to regain favor [with President Trump], so she might be given another mission like make sure 2026 goes our way,” Reed said.

“Are you nervous?” Raw Story asked.

“I am,” Reed said. “Everyone should be.

“Because if you look at the cumulative steps from the first day — taking apart the cybersecurity infrastructure approach, taking out the agency, the FBI, that handles election security — you know, it’s as if the plan all along is we won't have those protections we need for the election.”

President Trump’s recent call to “nationalize” those midterms isn’t helping.

“Nationalizing … is unconstitutional,” Reed said.

As Fulton County officials fight in court to reclaim control of election materials, critics say the conspiracy-fueled underpinningings of the Trump administration investigation are becoming clear.

On Tuesday, Fulton County officials wrote in a court filing that, “instead of alleging probable cause to believe a crime has been committed,” the FBI search warrant application did “nothing more than describe the types of human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election — without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever.”

The filing also noted the warrant relied on debunked conspiracies propagated by Kurt Olsen, an election denier sanctioned by a number of courts for unfounded claims that 2020 results were invalid.

‘No legitimate legal role’

For congressional critics, watching Gabbard claim new domestic investigative powers based on debunked conspiracies is especially alarming.

“She has no legitimate legal role to be at the Fulton County voter election bureau,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) told Raw Story, on the House side of the Capitol.

“It feels like a desperate ploy to get back in Donald Trump's good graces, but the fact that they're doing this by trying to elevate years-old, multiple-discredited, crazy conspiracy theories should be really concerning to everyone.”

The DNI’s role is “supposed to be about foreign threats,” Scanlon added.

Conspiracies beget conspiracies, it seems: Scanlon and others wonder if Trump’s fixation with Venezuela — and the dramatic January raid to capture its then-leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores — wasn’t tied to wild claims that the South American country controls voting machines across the globe and had a hand in Trump’s 2020 defeat.

“Certainly the fear that I've heard expressed is that now that they have the president, former president, purported president of Venezuela in custody and they have this crazy theory from 2020 that Venezuela somehow took over voting machines, can they get him to cop to doing this as a ‘get out of jail free’ card?” Scanlon said.

“I mean, it's a wild thing to even be thinking about, but we have seen that this is an administration that doesn't care what depths it descends to.”

Which is why Scanlon and others say the DNI investigating local American elections is so worrisome.

“We do need to look at what kind of domestic surveillance is going on or has been going on and the misuse of taxpayer funds to do political work,” Scanlon said.

Reports that Gabbard called President Trump after the Fulton County FBI raid are also concerning to Democrats.

“Let’s be clear: It is inappropriate for a sitting president to personally involve himself in a criminal investigation tied to an election he lost,” Senate Intelligence Vice-chair Mark Warner (D-VA) told congressional reporters.

‘Destroying democratic norms’

Nonetheless, the Trump administration seems set on testing the bounds of what’s politically appropriate — and the Constitution itself.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard, at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

“Obviously, they are destroying our national security infrastructure, destroying democratic norms every single day,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Raw Story.

“Yes, it should freak everybody out that the director of national intelligence is sitting outside of an election office in Georgia, but there's lots of things every day that should freak people out.

“None of this is normal, and nobody should act like it's normal.”

Back when he sat in the House, Murphy served alongside Gabbard, then a first-term Democrat from Hawaii. While the two teamed up on some foreign policy measures, Murphy says he barely recognizes her now.

“She's just desperately searching for relevance in the MAGA world and to get back on Trump's calendar,” Murphy told Raw Story.

“I've sort of stopped long ago trying to decipher the internal dynamics of the MAGA ecosystem.”

Gabbard’s scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 18.

Cabinet member's 'blazing red flag' blunder 'wildly worse' than Signalgate: expert

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is at the storm of what a former GOP strategist has called a worse moment for Donald Trump's administration than the Yemen leak.

Highly sensitive military information had been leaked inadvertently in March 2025 when a group chat including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance also featured The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. It marked an embarrassing moment for the administration, but there are fears of even bigger new leak problems involving Gabbard, according to political analyst Rick Wilson.

The National Security Agency flagged a phone call between two foreign intelligence members, with highly sensitive communication — reportedly involving somebody close to Trump — brought to Gabbard's attention.

The director, rather than allowing the NSA's investigation to continue, took a paper copy to Susie Wiles, the president's chief of staff, according to The Guardian.

This move could be damaging to the administration, according to Wilson, who appeared on political commentator Molly Jong-Fast's podcast to discuss the problem Gabbard has caused.

Wilson said, "She is in some deep, deep, deep, deep s--t. The intelligence community people who are still around give a damn about their job. They give a damn about the country and the security and she has put us in danger.

"This is at a level that is so above and beyond because of both the nature of the target, whoever this foreign intelligence person was, and the collection system from the NSA that got the information. This is something incredibly sensitive, crown-jewel-level stuff.

"This is a blazing red flag about Gabbard's inability and lack of temperament to do this job."

Fast Politics host Jong-Fast then asked if this situation is "worse or better" than the Yemen strike leak from Hegseth last year.

"This is wildly worse," Wilson replied. "That foreign intelligence person almost certainly will become aware that they are targeting them in a certain way, they will communicate differently.

"The other part of this is what it implicates in the Trump administration. We have seen in what we know of the complaint so far is that the person they were talking to is 'close to Trump,' this does not mean it is a government official.

"Given Donald Trump's propensity for using outside actors, Steve Whitkoff, Jared Kushner, who are not government officials, to conduct diplomacy and foreign policy, I'm deeply concerned that somebody inside the Trump government... gets on the phone and calls another person and says 'did you hear about this thing that we're doing?'"

Trump official declared most 'pathetic' of admin in scathing rebuke: 'Humiliated herself'

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard drew a blistering rebuke Sunday from journalist Mehdi Hasan, who called her the most “pathetic” and “shameless” Trump administration official for repeatedly getting "humiliated by the very man she serves.”

A former Democrat, Gabbard has been on the outs of the Trump administration, with the White House frequently excluding her from briefings and Trump aides labeling her with the nickname “Do Not Inform,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to her title as DNI director.

“Even at her worst, I could at least respect that she seemed to be guided by a set of clear ideological convictions,” Hasan wrote in an op-ed published Sunday on Zeteo.

“What we’re left with now is something much grimmer: a political shapeshifter and sycophant so eager to curry Trump’s favor that she has abandoned every pretense of professional and ideological independence.”

Indeed, much of Gabbard’s previous statements and positions have been directly contradicted by the Trump administration, and without any meaningful response from Gabbard.

Gabbard publicly denounced those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as “criminals,” but stood silent as Trump issued them blanket pardons. She told Congress last year amid fears that the Trump administration would strike Iran that the Middle East nation was likely “not building a nuclear weapon,” only to reverse course and later claim that Iran was only weeks away from building a nuclear weapon.

Gabbard had also previously argued against U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, only to get caught vacationing in Hawaii during Trump’s attack on the South American nation last month after reportedly being left out of the operation’s planning process. She also remained silent on the attack in the days since.

“What is so pathetic is that we are barely a year into this administration and she has already humiliated herself – and been humiliated by the very man she serves,” Hasan wrote.

“Yet she continues to carry his water, to spin his narratives, to defend his baseless election claims, and to lend the prestige of her office to fake intelligence assessments. So I have to ask: does Tulsi Gabbard have any self-respect at all?”

Tulsi Gabbard mistakenly gave up 'biggest smoking gun' against president: ex-Trump staffer

Former Trump official turned critic Miles Taylor Thursday said that the president's spy chief Tulsi Gabbard could have just implicated the president in the fallout over why she was at the FBI raid of an election office in Fulton County, Georgia.

In his Substack, Taylor described how Gabbard "over-explained" the reason she was at the Georgia FBI raid in a letter to Congress, which Trump flatly denied during a NBC News interview this week. The two also appeared to have accidentally mixed up their messages and the justification for seizing the 2020 ballots (Trump has falsely claimed and argued that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him).

"Gabbard didn’t just say she happened to be there. She said the President requested her presence and specifically directed her observation of the search. That’s extraordinary," Taylor wrote. "The Director of National Intelligence does not run criminal investigations. She does not execute search warrants. She does not supervise FBI evidence collection at state election offices."

The comment also raised some serious questions.

"Either Gabbard is lying, or Trump is. Or possibly both," Taylor explained. "None of those options are good. But the biggest question is why would the President personally send his spy chief to observe a federal search of a local election facility? If I was still working on Capitol Hill, I would urge that the oversight committees immediately open an investigation (and at least the Democrats, if the Republicans refuse)."

And although Trump said he didn't know Gabbard was at the raid, he did say this in his NBC interview:

"There should be nothing wrong with the fact that they went in, got ballots from a while ago, and they’re gonna look at ‘em. And now they’re gonna find out the true winner," Trump said.

His comment about "the true winner" was most eye-opening, Taylor explained.

"This might be the biggest smoking gun of all," Taylor wrote. "The President of the United States is suggesting that FBI agents raided the Fulton County election offices to get old ballots from the 2020 election for an unauthorized, unconstitutional recount of the state’s election results — not because of spurious 'foreign interference' worries, which is the threadbare justification Trump and his spy chief are apparently trying to use — potentially to break the law. This is dictator-level stuff, folks."

Taylor suggested that lawmakers demand Gabbard now testify.

"Tulsi Gabbard may have thought she was insulating herself," Taylor wrote. "Instead, she may have just handed investigators a checklist for examining whether Donald Trump inserted himself into a law enforcement action involving election materials… misused national security authorities for political ends… and then lied about it to the American people in order to cover up possible criminal activity."

"Congress shouldn’t ignore the Gabbard letter. To me, it’s evidence," he added. "They should treat it as probable cause for rigorous oversight and a formal investigation. And they should start asking the above questions — this time, under oath."

America's most dangerous woman still serves Trump — and it's not Kristi Noem

Even among a crowd as inept and peculiar as President Donald Trump’s cabinet, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, stands out as quite the loon. And by loon, I mean treacherously duplicitous threat.

Trump has proven himself expert at choosing precisely the worst person for every job, seeming to pick based on who would be the most disastrous possible choice. It’s uncanny. Looking at you, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and you, Pete Hegseth, and you, Kristi Noem.

But particularly, looking at Gabbard, the former member of Congress from Hawaii who ran for president as a Democrat back in 2020.

There are so many reasons Gabbard shouldn’t be within 10,000 miles of a post with “intelligence” in the title, and not merely because she so lacks the quality in question, or even because of that weird gray streak in her hair.

You may have heard about how last week the FBI seized truckloads of 2020 ballots from an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, as part of Trump’s ongoing mania surrounding his loss in that election. Talk about a man who can’t take no for an answer.

Lurking there in the shadows of the election center, for reasons no one seemed able to determine, was Gabbard. Why she should have been ordered by Trump to oversee the raid when she’s meant to lead national intelligence is a curious question indeed. But there she was, hanging with and directly questioning FBI agents.

Not only that, but on Monday the New York Times broke the story that after the raid, Gabbard used a cellphone to call Trump. He didn’t pick up but reportedly called back shortly thereafter, to question and praise the agents.

Following up, on Tuesday the Guardian reported that Gabbard is essentially freelancing, conducting her own 2020 investigation and keeping Trump briefed.

“She’s doing her own thing,” an “administration official familiar with the matter” told the paper, which said Trump told Gabbard to go to Georgia.

It is, in a word, madness. In another, it’s frightening.

It all shows us two things:

One, Trump is taking his 2020 presidential election insanity to a whole new level of involvement and will to overturn a settled issue.
Two, Gabbard has proven herself, like everyone else in Trump’s administration, a sycophant who will do her boss’s bidding unquestioningly, no matter the bounds of legality.

When it comes to Gabbard, however, there’s more.

She has been openly accused of parroting Russian propaganda, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Her views on foreign policy have been described as promoting Russian interests, including a famous 2017 meeting with then Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

If there’s one thing you really don’t want in an overseer of sensitive and classified information, it’s to be seen as more sensitive to the views of the enemy. It’s not a good look.

There is also the matter of the drastic, some would say erratic political pivot Gabbard made after serving as a Democratic U.S. Representative to Hawaii from 2013 to 2021.

Gabbard decided 2022 would be a good time to dump her party and go independent, followed two years later by becoming a Republican. It may have had something to do with her feelings being hurt after the failure of her long-shot 2020 presidential campaign.

We also must not forget the unhinged three-minute video she posted to social media last June, warning of a potential “nuclear holocaust” and chastising the “political elite and warmongers” for bringing the world “closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before.

“And perhaps it’s because they are confident they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families that regular people won’t have access to.”

As the saying goes: WTF?

The video was posted following a visit to Hiroshima, Japan, near the 80th anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on that city. Gabbard also questioned whether “the remilitarization of Japan” was “truly a good idea.”

The woman is clearly bonkers, but her words did speak to the administration’s determination to turn allies into foes and totalitarian foes into allies.

It was also last summer that Gabbard released a series of declassified documents she claimed exposed a “treasonous conspiracy” by President Barack Obama and his intelligence team, designed to sabotage Trump. That led to Attorney General Pam Bondi pushing to convene a grand jury investigation.

It's all delusional. But we’ve come to learn that today’s absurdity is tomorrow’s reality.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard, at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

One more thing about Gabbard has emerged this week, in a Wall Street Journal report. A whistleblower complaint against her reportedly involves material so classified, it’s been withheld from Congress for eight months and is said to be locked in a safe.

Not even Andrew Bakaj, an attorney for the whistleblower, has been authorized to review it. And yet the person who is the subject of this complaint, Gabbard, has successfully kept it hidden and remains in her job, because apparently no possible misconduct is considered inexcusable when the president is operating a criminal enterprise.

How is it that eight months have passed without this apparently massive disclosure seeing the light of day, a delay that could cause grave danger to national security? Because concealing information is at the heart of all this administration does or refuses to do.

Gabbard is fortunate that to her boss, loyalty matters far more than expertise, or even allegiance to country. It’s true, even when that person’s incompetence jeopardizes us all.

This is why Tulsi Gabbard is the most dangerous woman in America, and why her being booted from her job is at least as important as Noem being dumped from hers.

Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.

Trump's answer for 'inexplicable' presence at raid 'doesn't pass the laugh test': expert

The Trump administration Thursday gave an explanation over why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was at the FBI raid at an election office in Georgia, but it is laughable, according to one expert.

The FBI Wednesday raided an elections center in Fulton County, Georgia. President Donald Trump has continued to insist that election fraud cost him the 2020 election, despite no clear evidence that this happened.

A Trump administration official, whose name was not released, Thursday released a statement to MS NOW about why Gabbard was involved in the raid.

"Director Gabbard has a pivotal role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections against interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases and election infrastructure. She has and will continue to take action on President Trump's directive to secure our elections and work with our interagency partners to do so," the Trump administration official said.

Former FBI special agent Michael Feinberg reacted to the Trump administration's statement and cast doubt on why Gabbard should have been at the location.

"It doesn't pass the laugh test for anybody who's actually worked in this world. And there's a couple reasons for that," Feinberg said.

"First of all, this was collection of evidence," Feinberg explained. "There is nothing there that cannot be reported to Tulsi Gabbard once they have processed it, analyzed it, and made and finished doing whatever they were doing on site. Again, it is unheard of for non-law enforcement personnel to take place in the execution of a search warrant. Secondly, this is a criminal investigation. It is looking at past conduct. Even if we believed that Tulsi Gabbard should be involved in law enforcement actions relating to the security of our elections, that is only something that she would be doing if there was something happening presently or in the future. It is inexplicable that there was why she was there. There is literally no legitimate reason that she should have been on site."