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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
To look more at President Trump’s calls to “nationalize” the elections and other attacks on the voting system, we’re joined by David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. Significantly, he’s a former Department of Justice attorney in the voting division.
Thanks so much for being with us, David. I want to start with this picture of Tulsi Gabbard in Fulton County, which was ground zero for the 2020 election conspiracy theory, standing there on the phone. The news is that she used her cellphone for President Trump to speak on speakerphone with these FBI agents that raided the election county office and took 700 boxes of voter data and rolls away. What is the significance of the director of national intelligence and the president of the United States speaking with these FBI agents? How unusual is it?
DAVID BECKER: It’s incredibly unusual for any kind of search warrant. Usually, when a search warrant is executed, it’s executed by professionals who are experts in collecting evidence and establishing chain of custody. Remember, the whole purpose of a search warrant is to collect evidence for use in a future legal proceeding, probably a criminal prosecution. And to introduce that evidence, you’re going to have to be able to account for that evidence every step of the way. But here you’ve got the director of national intelligence, who has no statutory authority to be involved in a domestic election investigation, and certainly not to be present during the execution of a search warrant, not only in the local county election warehouse, but apparently on the phone with the president of the United States at the time.
And as disturbing as this is, I can almost assure you it’s much more disturbing to the very, very few experienced litigators who are still at the Department of Justice, because if the Department of Justice ever sought to introduce this evidence at some point, this is a defense counsel’s dream. They’re going to call, I would expect call, DNI Gabbard to the stand to establish exactly what she was doing in that building, what evidence she had access to, whether she altered the chain of custody in any way, and perhaps even call President Trump, since he was on the phone during that. This is going to make that evidence really difficult to introduce at any future proceeding, which, of course, is a problem, ultimately, for the Department of Justice.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about exactly — do you understand where these voter rolls went?
DAVID BECKER: So, my understanding is it’s predominantly ballots and other documents. If it was voter rolls, it might have been printouts or something like that. I mean, those likely were old. We don’t know exactly where they went. We don’t know under what conditions they have been stored. We don’t know what they’re doing with them.
And it’s important also to note that the 2020 election — and Secretary Fontes made this point, as well — is the most scrutinized election in world history. There has never been more litigation, more scrutiny, more review, more recounts, more audits of an election than any election in history, in world history. And those ballots in Georgia, in particular, paper ballots throughout the entire state, which were recounted and recounted again, counted three times, three different ways, once entirely by hand, under the observation of both parties. So we know what happened.
That happened well over five years ago, which raises another issue, because there’s a federal statute of limitations about the alleged crimes that were committed, that would have expired after five years. It’s unusual that a magistrate might have signed off on this warrant. We’ll have to see what happens. But my understanding is also that Fulton County has now gone to the federal district court in Atlanta to challenge this warrant. And we’ll see what happens over the course of the next several days on that.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, you are a former official at the Justice Department, and this is semi-related, I think. The Wall Street Journal reported that there is a whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard, so highly classified that it’s said to be locked in a safe. It hasn’t been shared with Congress. It was apparently filed in May. Can this have anything to do with why she’s doing what she’s doing?
DAVID BECKER: I try to stay away from speculation on this. I don’t have any specific knowledge about that whistleblower complaint. I mean, I think that, you know, she has asserted to lawmakers who challenged her on her appearance that she has authority to be there, that she’s part of an overall investigation into interference in the 2020 election. It may be true. She has some authority to investigate foreign interference. Again, the statute of limitations has run. But regardless of what that complaint says, there is no valid reason for a political appointee of that level to be at any execution of a search warrant ever. You can only imagine what would have happened if the director of national intelligence under President Biden had been physically present at Mar-a-Lago during the execution of the search warrant when they seized documents there, and how that would have been used by his then-defense counsel Todd Blanche, who now sits as the deputy attorney general, to challenge the evidence in that case.
AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, several of the most prominent pro-Trump election deniers are back in the news this week. You have Trump adviser Roger Stone posting a message on X reading, “Honored to chat with our incredibly effective Vice President JD Vance.” Meanwhile, Justice Department official Ed Martin posted a photo alongside Trump’s former lawyer Sidney Powell. In October 2023, she pleaded guilty in Georgia to attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. Ed Martin helped organize the “Stop the Steal” protests that aimed to overturn the 2020 election. And you’ve got, what, the former head of, the founder of Overstock, Patrick — what’s his name? I think Byrne.
DAVID BECKER: Byrne.
AMY GOODMAN: — invited back to the White House. All of them, deeply involved with the conspiracy theory, going to the White House on December 18th, 2020.
DAVID BECKER: Yeah, I mean, look, it’s — we’ve got an ecosystem of grift that has grown out of the lies about the 2020 election. There are people who are targeting the sincerely disappointed supporters of President Trump. And we all understand what it means to be disappointed in an election, even if we disagree with people on how they voted. But they are being targeted by grifters to receive money over the course of this five-plus years.
And it is easy to go on social media and friendly media — and even the president does this — and make false claims about the election. But as Secretary Fontes pointed out, time and time again, when they have been given the opportunity to present evidence in court over more than five years, time and time again, they have been begged to present evidence to defend themselves in court, and time and time again, in dozens of cases, including before Trump-appointed judges, in defamation cases, where they could have presented the truth as a defense, Rudy Giuliani, Kari Lake both conceded liability in defamation and accepted hundreds of millions of dollars of liability. Fox News settled the case for almost $800 million before presenting a shred of evidence. And Mike Lindell, who was sued, stood on the courthouse steps spreading lies about the election and then went inside the courthouse and said nothing, presented nothing under oath. So, when you hear these lies from these grifters who continue to try to profit off of the lies about the 2020 election, ask them to tell it to a judge, because those judges have stood firm and required them to present proof.
And the simple fact is, the 2020 election wasn’t only not a crime, it was one of the great successes of American history, not because a particular candidate won or not, but because somehow the election officials, Republicans and Democrats, from the state and local level, managed an election with the highest turnout in American history during a global pandemic. And their work has withstood more scrutiny than any election in world history, and it has stood up to that scrutiny every time.
AMY GOODMAN: David Becker, I want to thank you for being with us, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, former Department of Justice attorney in the voting division.
Next up, the Bulletin of [the Atomic] Scientists have put the hands of the clock closest to midnight than they’ve ever been when it comes to nuclear war. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: Lila Downs performing Manu Chao’s “Clandestino” for Democracy Now!‘s 25th anniversary celebration during the pandemic. And now we’re moving into our 30th anniversary. I hope people come out to the historic Riverside Church on February 23rd, 7:00, for an amazing celebration of 30 years of this daily, global, grassroots news hour. You can go to democracynow.org for tickets. Among those who will be there will be Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, the Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa. We’ll also be joined by Michael Stipe, the singer and songwriter. Wynton Marsalis will be performing, as well as Hurray for the Riff Raff, and so much more. That’s February 23rd. Go to democracynow.org while tickets are still there.
