Sen. Warner calls Gabbard to testify after Georgia election office raid, Trump FBI call

Gabbard’s letter said Trump “did not ask any questions, nor did he or I issue any directives” on the call.

She added that her office’s general counsel “has found my actions to be consistent and well within my statutory authorities.”

Warner rejected that defense.

“The broad authority to analyze intelligence is not a license to participate in a sham investigation,” he said. “And it certainly does not justify facilitating direct contact between the frontline FBI agents doing this investigation, directly to the president of the United States.”

Meanwhile, Trump, in a podcast interview with former deputy FBI director Dan Bongino that was released Monday, called on members of the Republican Party to “take over the voting.”

He made that suggestion after echoing the conspiracy theory that noncitizens are being “brought” into the U.S. to vote illegally. Trump tied the claim — which has been repeatedly debunked — with his administration’s aggressive efforts to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

“If we don’t get them out, Republicans will never win another election,” Trump told Bongino.

It’s “amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it. The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places,'” Trump said.

“The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” he went on. “We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won that show I didn’t win.”

States are primarily responsible for governing their own election systems.

“You’re going to see something in Georgia, where they were able to get, with the court order and the ballots,” Trump added in the interview. “You’re going to see some interesting things come out.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, asked Tuesday why Gabbard is involved in the Georgia operation, said Trump has tapped her to “oversee the sanctity and the security of our American elections.”

“This is a coordinated, whole-of-government effort to ensure that our elections, again, are fair and transparent moving forward,” Leavitt said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Tuesday both defended Trump’s comments about nationalizing elections.

“What you’re hearing from the president is his frustration about the lack of some of the blue states, frankly, of enforcing these things and making sure that they are free and fair elections,” Johnson said.

Thune said, “I think the president has clarified what he meant by that, and that is that he supports the SAVE Act,” referring to legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/03/gabbard-trump-georgia-election-fbi-warner.html