WASHINGTON – Virginia’s U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued the following statement after an FBI search warrant affidavit regarding the 2020 election results in Fulton County, GA, was unsealed:  

“The newly unsealed affidavit shows this search originated from the frivolous claims of Kurt Olsen, an attorney who traffics in debunked falsehoods about the 2020 election. It also makes clear there was no foreign intelligence nexus.

“So why was the Director of National Intelligence there?

“When the nation’s top intelligence official inserts herself into a matter with no connection to a foreign threat, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the objective was political – namely, getting back into Donald Trump’s good graces – and that her presence was meant to lay the groundwork for baseless claims of foreign interference. Americans should be deeply concerned about what someone with sweeping authority over the country’s intelligence apparatus might do to achieve that.”

Earlier today, Warner and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) called on Director Gabbard to immediately schedule an Intelligence Community (IC) briefing for senators on election security ahead of the 2026 midterms. The request comes in light of Gabbard’s unprecedented involvement in the Fulton County raid and the seizure of voting machines and election data in Puerto Rico, actions tied to unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 election. Warner and Padilla emphasized that Gabbard’s conduct – acting without a clear foreign threat, providing inconsistent explanations, and undermining state election officials – makes urgent transparency and a full briefing essential to keep the IC focused on genuine threats, not partisan politics.