Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Sunday questioned the possibility of President Trump interfering in the 2026 midterm elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Warner\u2019s concern stemmed from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard\u2019s effort to gather voting records related to the 2020 presidential election, which Trump has falsely claimed he won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe fact is Donald Trump cannot get over the fact that he lost Georgia in 2020, that he lost the election in 2020,\u201d Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said during an appearance on CBS News\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy fear is now, he sees the political winds turning against him, and is he going to try to interfere in the 2026 elections? Something a year ago I didn\u2019t think would be possible,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Warner\u2019s statements follow an FBI probe of a Fulton County, Ga., election hub where agents confiscated voting ballots from the 2020 election, with Gabbard on site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier in the year, she also helped authorities seize voting machines in Puerto Rico after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it received allegations of \u201cdiscrepancies and systemic anomalies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Warner says lawmakers were not previously informed of Gabbard\u2019s presence during the Georgia raid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have asked. OK, we then subsequently found that this was not the first time she was involved in domestic activities. She went down and seized some voting machines in Puerto Rico earlier in the year. Again, we had no knowledge of that. And then the question of what she was doing in Georgia, there\u2019s been three or four different stories since it broke,\u201d the Virginia senator said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFirst, she said the president asked, then the president said he didn\u2019t ask her, then he said it was Pam Bondi, the attorney general. So, we don\u2019t have the slightest idea other than the fact that the whole thing stinks to high heaven,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Warner warned that many of the systems put in place to ward off faulty elections have been \u201cbasically disbanded,\u201d noting funding cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI and the national intelligence director\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said there has been no evidence of foreign interference in U.S. elections but flagged concerns about the president interfering in the upcoming election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis was what I\u2019m seeing from the president\u2019s own comments about nationalizing elections and putting Republicans in charge, counter to the Constitution. We\u2019ve seen these activities in Georgia, where, could there be some effort that suddenly gives him an excuse to try to take some of these federalization efforts?\u201d Warner asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. We focused a lot of this activity on ICE in terms of they\u2019re going rogue in Minneapolis,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Warner continued, \u201cBut there is a very real threat without reforms at ICE that you could have ICE patrols around polling stations. \u2026 We\u2019ve seen ICE discriminate against Latinos\u2019 families. We\u2019ve seen as well mixed families where someone may be legal and others not. And candidly, you don\u2019t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n