National intelligence director said voting machine seizure was requested by US attorney in Puerto Rico – who’s been trying to revive 2020 election conspiracy theory
When the US director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, testified on Thursday that her office seized voting machines fromPuerto Rico, she said it was at the request of the office of the US attorney in Puerto Rico. Left unsaid was that the prosecutor, as the Guardianpreviously reported, has been the center of a push byDonald Trumpsupporters to revive a long discredited conspiracy theory purporting to linkVenezuelato Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat.
Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the conspiracy theory maintains, controlled electronic voting machines worldwide and remotely manipulated results in 2020 to deprive Trump of a presidential victory.
It was just one of the theories and grievances pushed by Trump and his supporters. Other complaints involved dead voters, stolen ballots, mail-in ballot fraud and mass voting by noncitizens.
A judge in 2023 ruled the voting machine conspiracy involving Dominion Voting and Venezuelawas false, and some news organizations that made the allegations have retracted them and paid what amounted to hundreds of millions in defamation claims.
Still, as president, Trump appeared to express support for the theory, even days after he ordered a military incursion into Venezuela to capture Maduro this year.
It was in early 2025 that the theory got a rehearing in Trump’s justice department. Two longtime proponents, former CIA official Gary Berntsen and Venezuela expatriate Martin Rodil, made the case for it to the US attorney for the district ofPuerto Rico, W Stephen Muldrow, three sources told the Guardian.
The three sources said Berntsen and Rodil also briefed the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) with the same claims.
A national intelligence official, in response to questions, emailed the Guardian that “any information provided by Bernsten [sic] and Rodil was done so voluntarily”. The official added: “Bernsten [sic] and Rodil did not have an impact on ODNI’s decision to assess Puerto Rico machines.”
Muldrow’s inquiry into the Venezuela voting conspiracy underscores how Trump’s justice department is becoming a major weapon in the president’s efforts torewrite the historyof his 2020 loss.
Source: Drudge Report
