Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard confirmed that the 2020 election was compromised and that federal officials were aware of the vulnerabilities in a Thursday interview.
During a high-level Cabinet meeting with President Trump earlier this year, Gabbard revealed that the Intelligence Community has been actively investigating evidence of election interference and potential tampering with electronic voting systems.
In the meeting, she noted signs that both foreign and domestic actors may have attempted to manipulate vote totals. “I’ve got a long list of things that we’re investigating. We have the best going after this, election integrity being one of them,” Gabbard said during the April meeting.
“We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time and vulnerable to exploitation to manipulate the results of the votes being cast, which further drives forward your mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections,” she revealed.
Appearing on “The Benny Johnson Show” on Thursday, Gabbard revealed that a whistleblower from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) came forward with alarming evidence indicating the government was aware of major vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines prior to the 2020 election—but intentionally chose not to act or inform the public.
“The point that I was making there in the Cabinet meeting was [an] early discovery that I had seen from a whistleblower who came forward, who was working under CISA at that time, which is responsible for critical infrastructure and trying to protect against cyber vulnerabilities. Critical infrastructure includes, of course, the integrity of our election systems,” she told Johnson.
“What was interesting was seeing how this whistleblower brought forward information that CISA—at that time, the federal government—was aware of vulnerabilities in our election machines, but they chose not to disclose that information to the American people or to the administration at that time,” she continued.
“This is an area, of course, of critical importance—once again—for the American people to have faith in the integrity of our elections, and that it is their voice that is heard through these elections. We’re continuing to investigate this, and when we have information that we are ready to release, you’ll hear about it,” she added.
“Okay, so we’re going to be hearing more on the 2020 election and some critical vulnerabilities?” Johnson pressed. Gabbard responded: “Yes.”
WATCH:
President Donald Trump has long asserted that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen,” but up to this point, no hard evidence has been produced to support his allegations. Gabbard’s remarks to Johnson appear to indicate that, at a minimum, the federal government has known that electronic voting systems were vulnerable to infiltation and, potentially, manipulation of vote tallies.
Trump signed a sweeping executive order aimed at overhauling U.S. federal elections in March, mandating that all voters present documentary proof of citizenship—such as a passport or citizenship-verified ID—when registering for federal elections.
It also requires that every mail-in ballot be received by Election Day to be counted, eliminating postmarked-but-delayed ballots from consideration.
The directive includes several enforcement mechanisms: it empowers federal agencies to withhold funding from states that fail to comply, instructs the Department of Justice to prosecute “election crimes,” and orders federal agencies to share data with state officials to identify noncitizens on voter rolls.
A federal court has issued preliminary injunctions blocking key provisions, however, including the requirement to submit citizenship documents when registering using the federal form, citing constitutional overreach and the risk of disenfranchising eligible voters.