Former Trump official turned critic Miles Taylor Thursday said that the president's spy chief Tulsi Gabbard could have just implicated the president in the fallout over why she was at the FBI raid of an election office in Fulton County, Georgia.
In his Substack, Taylor described how Gabbard "over-explained" the reason she was at the Georgia FBI raid in a letter to Congress, which Trump flatly denied during a NBC News interview this week. The two also appeared to have accidentally mixed up their messages and the justification for seizing the 2020 ballots (Trump has falsely claimed and argued that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him).
"Gabbard didn’t just say she happened to be there. She said the President requested her presence and specifically directed her observation of the search. That’s extraordinary," Taylor wrote. "The Director of National Intelligence does not run criminal investigations. She does not execute search warrants. She does not supervise FBI evidence collection at state election offices."
The comment also raised some serious questions.
"Either Gabbard is lying, or Trump is. Or possibly both," Taylor explained. "None of those options are good. But the biggest question is why would the President personally send his spy chief to observe a federal search of a local election facility? If I was still working on Capitol Hill, I would urge that the oversight committees immediately open an investigation (and at least the Democrats, if the Republicans refuse)."
And although Trump said he didn't know Gabbard was at the raid, he did say this in his NBC interview:
"There should be nothing wrong with the fact that they went in, got ballots from a while ago, and they’re gonna look at ‘em. And now they’re gonna find out the true winner," Trump said.
His comment about "the true winner" was most eye-opening, Taylor explained.
"This might be the biggest smoking gun of all," Taylor wrote. "The President of the United States is suggesting that FBI agents raided the Fulton County election offices to get old ballots from the 2020 election for an unauthorized, unconstitutional recount of the state’s election results — not because of spurious 'foreign interference' worries, which is the threadbare justification Trump and his spy chief are apparently trying to use — potentially to break the law. This is dictator-level stuff, folks."
Taylor suggested that lawmakers demand Gabbard now testify.
"Tulsi Gabbard may have thought she was insulating herself," Taylor wrote. "Instead, she may have just handed investigators a checklist for examining whether Donald Trump inserted himself into a law enforcement action involving election materials… misused national security authorities for political ends… and then lied about it to the American people in order to cover up possible criminal activity."
"Congress shouldn’t ignore the Gabbard letter. To me, it’s evidence," he added. "They should treat it as probable cause for rigorous oversight and a formal investigation. And they should start asking the above questions — this time, under oath."
