<\/p>\n
Donald Trump<\/a> on Thursday offered a new and shifting account of why Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was present last week at an FBI raid of an election center in Georgia, saying she went at the urging of the attorney general Pam Bondi.<\/p>\n \u201cShe took a lot of heat two days ago because she went in at Pam\u2019s insistence,\u201d the US president said at the National Prayer Breakfast, a high-profile event of political and religious leaders. \u201cShe went in and she looked at votes that wanted to be checked out from Georgia<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The remarks contradicted Trump\u2019s assertion just a day earlier that he did not know why Gabbard had appeared at the FBI<\/a> raid, and diverged from her account to lawmakers that she had traveled to Fulton county at Trump\u2019s express direction.<\/p>\n The shifting explanations have intensified scrutiny of the unusual role Gabbard played in the operation. As director of national intelligence, she has no domestic law enforcement authority, making her presence at an FBI raid out of the ordinary.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s account at the prayer breakfast marked a departure from remarks in an interview with NBC News<\/a> on Wednesday. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Trump said when asked why Gabbard was present, before suggesting, without offering evidence, that China had interfered in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n That statement also conflicted with a letter Gabbard sent on Wednesday to senior lawmakers in the House and Senate, in which she said she had attended the raid at Trump\u2019s instructions and had been present only briefly.<\/p>\n \u201cMy presence was requested by the president and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security,\u201d Gabbard wrote.<\/p>\n