Shifting explanations of Gabbard’s presence at election center intensifies scrutiny of role she played in operation
Donald Trump on Thursday offered a new and shifting account of why Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was present last week at an FBI raid of an election center in Georgia, saying she went at the urging of the attorney general Pam Bondi.
“She took a lot of heat two days ago because she went in at Pam’s insistence,” the US president said at the National Prayer Breakfast, a high-profile event of political and religious leaders. “She went in and she looked at votes that wanted to be checked out from Georgia.”
The remarks contradicted Trump’s assertion just a day earlier that he did not know why Gabbard had appeared at the FBI raid, and diverged from her account to lawmakers that she had traveled to Fulton county at Trump’s express direction.
The shifting explanations have intensified scrutiny of the unusual role Gabbard played in the operation. As director of national intelligence, she has no domestic law enforcement authority, making her presence at an FBI raid out of the ordinary.
