by Ryan Mancini – 01/29/26 10:35 AM ET
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Wednesday shared Reuters’s photo of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard during the FBI’s search of 2020 voting records at the Fulton County, Ga., elections office, questioning why she was there.
“Why is Tulsi Gabbard at an FBI raid on an election office in Fulton County?” Warner asked in a post on the social platform X, which included a video.
Reuters photographer Elijah Nouvelage captured the photo of Gabbard wearing a baseball cap and talking into a smartphone while next to a vehicle loaded with boxes, her eyes turned toward the camera.
Warner said there were two explanations for why Gabbard would be at the election offices.
“Either is a serious breach of trust that further underscores why she is totally unqualified to hold a position that demands sound judgment, apolitical independence, and a singular focus on keeping Americans safe,” he added.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey was also at the site of the search, NewsNation reported.
An official told NewsNation that 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 FBI said agents executed “a court authorized law enforcement action” at the county’s main office in Union City. FBI spokesperson Jenna Sellitto said boxes loaded on the trucks contained ballots.
Agents sought 2020 election records, Fulton County spokesperson Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez said.
“We don’t know why they took them, and we don’t know where they’re taking them to,” county Board of Commissioners Chair Robb Pitts said.
Fulton County played a pivotal role following President Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) indicted Trump on racketeering charges in 2023 for allegedly conspiring to subvert the election results and win Georgia to stay in office. The case was dropped in 2025 ahead of the president’s return to the White House and after Willis was disqualified from the case.
The county became the target of a complaint issued by the Justice Department last month over information related to the 2020 election. The department requested “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County” to investigate “compliance with federal law.”
The Associated Press contributed.
