Gabbard's Testimony on Puerto Rico Voting Machines Raises Questions About Venezuela Conspiracy Theory Role
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard testified before a House committee on Thursday that her office seized voting machines from Puerto Rico at the request of the U.S. attorney's office there. What she did not mention was that this prosecutor has been central to efforts by Donald Trump supporters to revive a thoroughly discredited conspiracy theory linking Venezuela to Trump's 2020 election loss.
The Debunked Venezuela Voting Machine Conspiracy
The conspiracy theory, which has been repeatedly disproven, claims that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro controlled electronic voting machines worldwide and remotely manipulated results in 2020 to prevent Trump from winning. This was just one of numerous unfounded claims pushed by Trump and his supporters following the election, including allegations about dead voters, stolen ballots, mail-in ballot fraud, and mass voting by noncitizens.
In 2023, a judge ruled that the voting machine conspiracy involving Dominion Voting and Venezuela was false. Several news organizations that promoted these allegations have since retracted them and paid hundreds of millions in defamation settlements.
Revival Through Trump's Justice Department
The theory gained new traction in early 2025 within Trump's Justice Department. According to three sources, longtime proponents Gary Berntsen, a former CIA official, and Venezuela expatriate Martin Rodil presented the case to U.S. Attorney for Puerto Rico W. Stephen Muldrow. These same sources indicated that Berntsen and Rodil also briefed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence with identical claims.
A national intelligence official responded to inquiries via email, stating that "any information provided by Berntsen and Rodil was done so voluntarily" and that "Berntsen and Rodil did not have an impact on ODNI's decision to assess Puerto Rico machines."
Overlap Between Intelligence Operations and Fringe Theories
Muldrow's inquiry into the Venezuela voting conspiracy highlights how Trump's Justice Department has become a significant tool in the president's efforts to rewrite the history of his 2020 defeat. The DNI official denied that the office was investigating the Venezuela theory specifically, stating, "Despite the false narrative you're attempting to manufacture, our efforts were not about any election in particular."
However, the unprecedented seizure of voting machines by an intelligence agency at the request of a prosecutor pursuing a fringe theory about those same machines demonstrates at minimum a concerning overlap in the case.
Congressional Testimony and Election Security Concerns
During Thursday's hearing, when questioned by Congressman Jim Himes about the voting machine seizure, Gabbard defended it as a legitimate effort to examine election vulnerabilities. "There were questions about whether or not there were vulnerabilities that a threat could have taken advantage of," Gabbard explained, "and that was the purpose of their requesting us to look into those vulnerabilities."
Meanwhile, during Wednesday's Senate testimony on the annual worldwide threat assessment, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia noted that for the first time since 2017, the report contained no mention of adversary attempts to influence American elections. "I don't believe this omission means that the threat has disappeared," Warner stated. "It means that the intelligence community is no longer being allowed to speak honestly about it."
Puerto Rico's Electoral Reality
It is important to note that Puerto Rico does not have any electoral votes in presidential elections. The territory's voting procedures have historically performed poorly in local races, often failing to transmit results electronically and requiring alternative methods to transfer voting data.
Muldrow declined to comment for this story. Berntsen, who has promoted the Venezuela conspiracy theories on various podcasts, messaged that investigators "weren't looking for Venezuelan connection in technology in Puerto Rico. They were looking for Chinese technology and found truck loads." He added, "Hopefully you will spend time to prove the crime and not time trying to disprove our work."
