Gabbard Dodges Questions About Foreign Threats To Midterms

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sidestepped questions about whether there were any credible foreign threats to U.S. elections — despite her involvement in the Trump administration’s efforts to probe alleged irregularities ahead of the midterms this November.

In his opening remarks at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats on Wednesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) noted that the topic of election security was omitted entirely from this year’s Annual Threat Assessment.

“For the first time since 2017, in the aftermath of Russia's intervention in our 2016 elections, the annual threat assessment includes nothing — nothing — about adversary attempts to influence our elections. Now, I don’t believe that this omission means the threat has disappeared — it means that the intelligence community is no longer being allowed to speak honestly about it," he said.

Warner later directly asked Gabbard about the omission from the report, which is a coordinated assessment across the intelligence community and led by ODNI. The top spy chief did not answer the question directly, and instead pointed Warner to her opening remarks, in which she stated that the intelligence community followed “the structure of priorities laid out” in President Donald Trump’s national security strategy when conducting its assessment.

The national security strategy, released in November, also makes no mention of foreign threats to U.S. elections.

“Are you saying there is no foreign threat to our elections in the midterms this year?” Warner pressed.

“The intelligence community has been and continues to remain focused on any collection and intelligence that shows a potential foreign threat,” Gabbard replied. “So far, there has been none then, because you’ve made no reports,” Warner retorted.

Threats to U.S. elections have been a cornerstone of recent threat assessments released by the intelligence community. The 2024 report highlighted how foreign adversaries, such as Russia, China and Iran, could try to influence upcoming U.S. elections. In last year’s assessment, which was published after Gabbard was confirmed to lead ODNI, election threats posed by Moscow were also detailed.

Warner said that Gabbard’s “failure to have any mention of a foreign threat” in this year’s assessment could lead to “the conclusion that there must be no foreign threats to our elections in 2026.”

The hearing comes as the Trump administration has been moving to exert greater power over upcoming U.S. elections, based on unfounded claims of widespread fraud and alleged foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election.

Warner hammered Gabbard on her role in these efforts, pointing to her presence at a January raid on an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, as part of an investigation into allegations of issues with the ballot-tallying process. These claims have been touted by conservative activists and have been repeatedly rejected by state and local officials.

Gabbard’s team also seized several voting machines in Puerto Rico last year, later claiming that the machines were riddled with cybersecurity vulnerabilities that could put U.S. elections at risk.

Meanwhile, Trump has directed U.S. spy agencies to share sensitive intelligence about the 2020 election with Kurt Olsen, the president’s former campaign lawyer, who is known for pushing debunked theories of election fraud. And the Justice Department earlier this month subpoenaed Arizona’s voting records from 2020 related to the election fraud claims.

The Washington Post reported last month that a 17-page draft executive order compiled by pro-Trump activists had been circulating around Washington, encouraging Trump to declare a national emergency around the midterm elections.

The draft states that declaring a national emergency would help “deal with the threat of foreign powers accessing critical election infrastructure and interfering in U.S. elections,” though no evidence has been provided yet to support those claims.

Trump has since denied that he is considering issuing the drafted directive.