Tulsi Gabbard is Trump’s Puppet in Attempted Election Takeover
A buried whistleblower complaint and a bizarre episode in Georgia suggest Gabbard has become a useful instrument in Trump’s ongoing effort to relitigate and control U.S. elections.
The Wall Street Journal reported today the existence of a whistleblower complaint against the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, filed eight months ago that is so highly classified, it’s locked in a safe. Neither the whistleblower’s attorney nor Congress has seen the complaint.
This is Extraordinary
Normally, whistleblower complaints get processed within 21 days, which means Congress should have known about this one in July.
“We didn’t know this existed until November,” said Mark Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in my interview with him.
He and the rest of the committee demand accountability.
“If we can’t force the Republicans to find a spine, we can hold what we call a shadow hearing,” he said. Although that would get far less press than an actual public committee hearing. Warner expects Gabbard to come before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March, though how much they’ll get out of her then remains to be seen.
Whistleblower complaints are crucial to the process of congressional oversight. To lock it away in a safe so that no one can see it hints at just how significant the revelations could be.
The whistleblower’s attorney accused Gabbard of stonewalling Congress’ ability to gain access to the complaint by not giving them the security clearance necessary to read it. In effect, that completely hamstrings Congress’ ability to do any oversight at all.
Gabbard’s spokesperson Olivia Coleman issued a rambling defense in response to the Wall Street Journal’s reporting. She accused the whistleblower of being politically motivated. She called the complaint baseless. She claimed “burying it” in highly classified information creates “false intrigue” and a “manufactured narrative.” As if this person is writing the sequel to “Bridge of Spies,” and not raising the alarm about a critical national security risk.
It certainly looks like the lady doth protest.
An Unhealthy Obsession
This all goes back to Trump’s pathological obsession with the 2020 election and the repeatedly discredited conspiracy theory that it was stolen from him. So here we are again, back in Georgia, searching for any kind of evidence to justify litigating a closed case. And who’s there this time? Tulsi Gabbard.
After FBI agents seized truckloads of 2020 ballots from a Georgia election facility (weird), Gabbard showed up at the FBI office in Atlanta and brokered a phone call between the agents and the President (weirder). That Gabbard would be present during the raid was stranger still, since our spying agencies are only supposed to look outside the country. They’re not supposed to spy on Americans. She has absolutely no jurisdiction here.
“What she was doing there besides currying favor with Trump? I don’t know that there’s any legitimate answer,” Warner said.
But what has lawmakers and observers scratching their heads most of all is that after the raid, Gabbard picked up her personal cellphone and dialed the President, who allegedly gave the field agents a little pep talk and a pat on the head.
None of this is normal.
She’s a Problem
Gabbard has been deemed a national security risk and accused of being a Russian asset by lawmakers for years. She had to answer for her repeated support for Putin and his allies throughout her contentious confirmation hearing in 2024.
She’s been caught parroting Russian propaganda.
In 2022 she endorsed Putin’s excuse for invading Ukraine (“protecting US-funded biolabs”).
She opposed US assistance to Ukraine, and their bid to join NATO, and criticized Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Back in 2017, she sat down for a secret meeting with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose regime was backed by - you guessed it - Russia. She returned home, claiming that the only way to end the war in Syria was to include Assad in the conversation.
The civil war in Syria was essentially a proxy war between the US and its allies and Russia and its allies. When Assad’s government collapsed, he fled to live in exile in - you guessed it - Russia.
During her 2024 confirmation hearing, Democrats were vocal in their opposition. Elizabeth Warren didn’t hold back, characterizing Gabbard as a huge threat to national security, “when she has so clearly been in Putin’s pocket. This has to be a hard no.”
Gabbard has made herself into a media darling on Russian state TV, where she’s been referred to (allegedly as a joke) as a Russian agent.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Read Between the Lines
Gabbard is not the main character here. She’s the excuse to tell a story: a tired rehashing of Trump’s manufactured lies about the “stolen” 2020 election.
The last thing Trump wants is free and fair elections. There is no more quiet part to say out loud. He’s screaming it from the rooftops.
Trump issued a call for Republicans to “take over” voting in at least 15 states on a conservative podcast this week. He wants to “nationalize” elections.
Adding to the Mount Everest of red flags, the Justice Department has been pressuring states like Minnesota to turn over their voter rolls in an effort to build a national voter file. And Trump’s been obsessed with making it harder for people to vote in general. He’s tried to pass laws that require proof of citizenship to vote, do away with mail-in ballots, and get rid of voting machines entirely.
None of this has worked.
So far.
Cue his aggressive demands for Republican redistricting. And lamenting not sending in the National Guard to seize voting machines in 2020. And his obsession with undocumented immigrants voting for Democrats. (There is no evidence that non-citizens have voted in any federal election.)
Trump wants to rig the midterms in 2026 or the general election in 2028. What he needs is an excuse. And Gabbard is the perfect patsy to do it. As Director of National Intelligence, all she has to do is gin up a story about “China” collaborating with “Hugo Chavez” and the Bidens and the Deep State, and Trump has enough to work with.
With his “proof” of election fraud in hand, he’ll be able to say “only I can prevent this in the future. So don’t worry, let me handle it.”
Gabbard knows where she fits into this puzzle. And she’s perfectly content to offer up a pretext - laughable though it may be - to justify Trump’s efforts to interfere in the next election. That is impeachable at best, and outright anti-American at worst.
Tulsi is a Russian asset. Protect the Vote.
I'm confused. If the 2020 election is overturned, um, well . . . what? Will time mysteriously rewind? Will he get to say, "I told you so." You're too late. Take your fake Nobel Peace Prize and go suck your thumb in the corner.