Tulsi Gabbard says she handed Trump the phone, he gave FBI agents a ‘pep talk’ in Georgia

WASHINGTON, DC: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard arranged a phone call between President Donald Trump and FBI agents who conducted a search of a Georgia elections office last week, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The call, linked to the ongoing 2020 election investigation in Fulton County, drew attention from lawmakers and legal experts, highlighting Trump’s involvement in post-election probes and raising questions about the role of federal officials in election oversight.

The unusual engagement, first reported by The New York Times, underscores Trump’s persistent interest in what he has described as election integrity matters in Georgia.

Trump gave a ‘pep talk’ to the agents

Sources said Gabbard traveled to Atlanta at Trump’s direction to coordinate with FBI agents executing the search. In a letter to top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence committees, Gabbard confirmed her actions were within her statutory authority.

“My presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counterintelligence, foreign influence, and cybersecurity,” she wrote.

“The FBI’s Intelligence/Counterintelligence divisions are one of the 18 elements that I oversee.”

Gabbard met with the agents the day after the search, sources said, and during the meeting, she called Trump to check in and asked whether he wanted to talk to the agents.

The president agreed and gave the agents a brief “pep talk,” one of the sources said, insisting the conversation did not go beyond that.

In her letter, to Sen Mark Warner and Rep Jim Himes, Gabbard said that while visiting the FBI’s Atlanta field office, she “facilitated a brief phone call for the President to thank the agents personally for their work.”

“He did not ask any questions, nor did he or I issue any directives,” Gabbard wrote.

She said her office’s general counsel found her actions to be within her lawful authority and that Trump “tasked ODNI with taking all appropriate actions under my statutory authorities towards ensuring the integrity of our elections and specifically directed my observance of the execution of the Fulton County search warrant.”

The President’s involvement in Georgia election

Gabbard met with agents the day after they executed a search warrant at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operation Center in Union City, Georgia, a search tied to efforts by the Justice Department to seize election materials and investigate alleged voter fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump has again and again reiterated his belief that he won Georgia in 2020, though he did not, and of his desire for his government to adjust election procedures to police what he sees as rampant fraud.

In an interview that aired Monday with Dan Bongino, the former deputy director of the FBI, Trump called on Republicans to “nationalize the voting” as he again falsely claimed errors in past election results.

“We have states that are so crooked and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won, that show I didn’t win. Now you’re going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with a court order, the ballots, you’re going to see some interesting things come out,” he added.

In response to CNN’s request for comment, Gabbard’s office provided her letter to Congress.