Gabbard's ODNI Seized Puerto Rico Voting Data

Gabbard's ODNI Seized Puerto Rico Voting Machines — Found No Foreign Hack

A team under DNI Tulsi Gabbard seized voting machines and election data from Puerto Rico last May. The probe found security flaws but zero evidence of Venezuelan interference — the theory that triggered it.

A team working for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard led an undisclosed investigation into Puerto Rico's voting machines in May 2025, seizing hardware and election data in coordination with the FBI's Miami field office — and producing no evidence of the Venezuelan hacking that officials say motivated the probe. Reuters first reported the operation Wednesday, citing three sources familiar with the events and confirmation from Gabbard's own office.

Gabbard's spokesperson told Reuters the investigation was voluntary and lawful, focused on "extremely concerning cyber security and operational deployment practices" in the island's electronic voting systems. The office said ODNI identified specific vulnerabilities: the machines used cellular technology susceptible to interception, and software flaws could give hackers access deep into electoral infrastructure. But the spokesperson denied the probe had anything to do with Venezuela.

The three Reuters sources contradict that account directly. They say the FBI team involved was specifically investigating the theory that Nicolás Maduro's government hacked Puerto Rico's elections — a claim with currency among Trump supporters but zero public evidence. The probe found nothing to substantiate it.

Jurisdictional Jiu-Jitsu

Gabbard's office is claiming statutory cover by citing ODNI's "broad authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security." The move is a jurisdictional workaround: domestic election security is typically the domain of state officials and the Justice Department, not the intelligence community. By framing the inquiry as a foreign-interference investigation, Gabbard brought ODNI into territory it has historically avoided.

The operation blurred lines further. Two sources told Reuters the group included national security officials, law enforcement agents, and government contractors. The U.S. Attorney in Puerto Rico and Homeland Security Investigations agents "facilitated the voluntary turnover" of equipment, per ODNI. But the machines and data now sit with an intelligence agency, not election administrators.

Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, registered immediate alarm: "What's most alarming here is that Director Gabbard's own team found no evidence of foreign interference, yet they seized voting machines and election data anyway." Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Puerto Rico's non-voting House member, Democrat Pablo José Hernández Rivera, told Reuters that the island's election problems are "attributable to incompetence and corruption, not foreign interference." Yahoo News / Reuters

The Maduro Backdrop

The Venezuela angle matters because of timing. The investigation occurred in May 2025. By January 2026, the U.S. military had seized Maduro in Caracas and renditioned him to New York on drug trafficking charges. The Puerto Rico voting-machine probe, retroactively, looks like one front in a multi-agency focus on the Maduro regime that culminated in his capture.

But it also fits a pattern the sources describe as more domestic in nature: a continuation of the election-fraud preoccupation that dates to Trump's 2020 loss. The Puerto Rico operation used foreign-interference authorities to investigate what is, at bottom, an election-integrity question on U.S. soil. Benzinga

What to Watch

Three things. First, whether Warner's Senate Intelligence Committee demands a closed briefing on the operation — the panel has oversight authority over ODNI and Warner has already signaled this crosses a line. Second, whether the voting machines and data are returned to Puerto Rico or remain in federal custody, and under what terms. Third, whether similar operations were conducted in states — ODNI noted "similar voting infrastructure elsewhere in the United States," which suggests the potential scope extends well beyond one territory. The 2026 midterms make that question urgent.