Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, whom Republicans elevated last year to a job she was unqualified and unprepared for, had an exceedingly difficult 2025. As the year progressed, the former U.S. representative found herself left out of important strategy sessions and briefings, apparently having fallen out of favor with Donald Trump.

Earlier this month, it appeared that the Hawaiian’s 2026 was shaping up to be another disaster: Amid multiple international crises, Gabbard was on the outside looking in. Some White House aides reportedly joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stood for “Do Not Invite.”

But as January nears its end, it appears Gabbard has found a new way to return to the president’s good graces.

FBI agents executed a search warrant on Wednesday at the Fulton County elections office near Atlanta, as part of the president’s ongoing crusade related to his 2020 election defeat. The developments were, by any fair measure, ridiculous, though they were made slightly worse by Gabbard’s in-person participation. Reuters reported:

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard visited the site of the search on Wednesday, Reuters witnessed, giving her a highly unusual presence in domestic law enforcement that one former official called unprecedented. Reuters reported that Gabbard last year formed a group of dozens of officials from across the federal government, including the Justice Department, that was helping to steer Trump’s drive for retribution against his perceived enemies.

In case there are any lingering doubts about whether it was actually her in Fulton County, there is a photograph of her at the site, which was promoted online by Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Warner issued a written statement about this, explaining, “There are only two explanations for why the Director of National Intelligence would show up at a federal raid tied to Donald Trump’s obsession with losing the 2020 election. Either Director Gabbard believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus — in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees ‘fully and currently informed’ of relevant national security concerns — or she is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy.”

The Democratic senator concluded, “Either is a serious breach of trust that further underscores why she is totally unqualified to hold a position that demands sound judgment, apolitical independence, and a singular focus on keeping Americans safe.”

By way of a defense, a Trump administration official said in a statement that Gabbard “has a pivotal role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections against interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases, and election infrastructure.”

That might sound vaguely reasonable, except as Warner made clear, if the DNI had reason to believe Georgia’s ballots had been compromised by foreign actors — a highly dubious idea, to be sure — it’d be incumbent on her to bring these concerns to the attention of Congress’ intelligence committees, which she has not done.

For his part, Trump has also not commented publicly, though he did use his social media platform to publish a blizzard of new and conspiratorial items about his 2020 defeat on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, including one that touted Gabbard joining FBI officials on Wednesday.

The DNI is reportedly scheduled to appear at the winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State in Washington on Friday, joining Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, though it’s not yet clear whether her remarks will include any references to her bizarre appearance in Georgia. Watch this space.

This post, which has been revised to include a statement from the administration, updates our related earlier coverage.