FBI conducting ‘court ordered activity’ at Georgia election site
(ATLANTA) — The FBI said Wednesday there was court-authorized activity at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center.
It is unclear exactly what they are looking for, but it comes after President Donald Trump has repeatedly said there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia.
This past November, a Georgia prosecutor dropped the Fulton County election interference case that was brought in 2023 against Trump and 18 others for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.
The charges were brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis following then-President Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to win the state.
Trump and the other defendants pleaded not guilty to all charges before Willis was disqualified from the case following accusations of impropriety regarding her relationship with a fellow prosecutor.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Ghislaine Maxwell October 18, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Jimi Celeste/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein, invoked the Fifth Amendment during the closed-door virtual deposition before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, according to Chairman James Comer.
It was expected that Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison in Texas, would refuse to answer questions from lawmakers and committee staffers as part of the panel’s investigation into the late financier and his ties to some of the world’s most powerful figures in politics, business and entertainment. Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died by suicide in 2019 while at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.
Maxwell has a petition pending in federal court in New York which seeks to overturn her conviction or reduce her sentence.
Some committee lawmakers were expected to attend the closed deposition.
The deposition was more than six months in the making, and was first requested last July, when Comer formally issued a subpoena for a deposition with Maxwell to occur at Federal Correctional Institution Tallahassee on Aug. 11.
Comer agreed to delay the deposition as Maxwell awaited a Supreme Court ruling on her appeal, which she ultimately lost.
During that interview, Maxwell told Blanche that she never witnessed nor heard of any criminal or inappropriate activity by President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, nor any of the well-known men who associated with Epstein, according to the sources.
The closed deposition with Maxwell comes on the same day that members of Congress can go to the Department of Justice to view unredacted versions of the Epstein files that the department has withheld from public disclosure.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard attends an event where President Donald Trump delivered an announcement on his Homeland Security Task Force in the State Dinning Room of the White House on October 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGOTN) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard returns to Capitol Hill this week for an annual set of hearings on worldwide threats — her most significant public appearance in months and her clearest opportunity yet to address the intelligence picture surrounding the war in Iran.
Lawmakers are expected to press Gabbard on the administration’s handling of the Iran conflict, homeland security concerns, election integrity and the broader global threat environment at a moment of rising tension.
The hearings will also offer a rare extended look at an intelligence chief who has spent much of the past year largely out of public view. The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to hear from her on Wednesday, March 18, with the House hearing set for Thursday, March 19.
She heads into the hearings under fresh scrutiny after the resignation of Joe Kent, the administration’s top counterterrorism official, who stepped down Tuesday over his objections to the Iran war — the highest-profile administration official to resign publicly over the conflict.
An ODNI official told ABC News that Gabbard was not asked by the White House to fire Kent, pushing back on a report first aired by Fox News.
Kent’s resignation sharpened questions already hanging over the administration’s case for war — whether Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States.
In his resignation letter, Kent said he could not “in good conscience” support the war and argued that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to the nation, directly undercutting President Donald Trump’s repeated public justification for the conflict.
Trump has previously said Tehran posed an imminent threat and was “very nearly” in a position to strike.
Hours after Kent’s resignation became public, Gabbard moved to publicly back Trump’s authority to make that call.
In a post on X, she said the president, as commander in chief, is responsible for determining “what is and is not an imminent threat” and whether action is necessary to protect U.S. troops, the American people and the country.
She added that ODNI’s role is to coordinate and integrate intelligence, so the president has the best information available to inform his decisions, and said Trump had concluded Iran posed an imminent threat after reviewing the available intelligence.
She did not directly address Kent’s allegations or mention him by name.
The moment is especially striking for Gabbard because few figures in Trump’s orbit spent more time warning about regime change wars, intelligence failures and the cost of Washington interventionism.
As a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, she was so vocal in her opposition to war with Iran that she sold “No War With Iran” T-shirts.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News last year, she again spoke about diplomacy, military restraint and the human cost of conflict in terms that reflected a worldview she has carried for years.
In that interview, Gabbard said the stress of her first deployment in her mid-20s turned part of her hair white, and that she kept the streak as a reminder of the high human cost of war.
“War must always be the last resort, only after all measures of diplomacy have been completely exhausted,” she told ABC News in the interview.
This week’s hearings will also unfold against the backdrop of Gabbard’s broader and unusually quiet tenure. Before taking office, she was rarely far from public view, frequently appearing on television, podcasts and social media.
As DNI, that version of her has largely faded from public view.
In recent months, she has appeared mostly in glimpses, at major administration moments.
Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and the first person in U.S. history to serve as DNI while in military uniform, appeared in uniform at Dover Air Force Base earlier this month during the dignified transfer of six American soldiers killed in a drone strike in Kuwait in the opening hours of the war with Iran.
She also heads into the hearing with other controversies still hanging over her.
Gabbard has drawn scrutiny for her role in the administration’s election integrity push, including her appearance outside the FBI’s operation in Fulton County, Georgia, in January, where federal agents seized election materials tied to the 2020 election, and her subsequent acknowledgment that she arranged a call between President Donald Trump and the agents involved. She has also faced continuing questions about her investigations into election security in Puerto Rico and Arizona.
ABC News previously reported that Gabbard arranged a call between Trump and FBI agents involved in the seizure of election materials in Fulton County, an unusual move given the sensitivity of the investigation. In Arizona, a senior administration official told ABC News that Gabbard was not on the ground but was still “working across the agency to ensure election integrity.”
The hearing is shaping up as more than a routine annual threat assessment.
It will be the clearest public test yet of how Gabbard explains the role she has carved out inside the Trump administration, and how she reconciles the anti-war politics that helped define her rise with the office she now holds at the center of a war she is being asked to defend.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrives for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security,” in Dirksen building on Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is facing two days of grilling on Capitol Hill as Democrats question her leadership of the Department of Homeland Security amid criticism of immigration enforcement operations and threats to the homeland after U.S. strikes against Iran.
Noem is testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday; she will testify before theHouse Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Her testimony comes as some parts of Noem’s agency — from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Transportation Security Administration to the Coast Guard — are shut down amid a funding fight over Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Democrats have said they will fund the department only if changes are made to the agency in the wake of the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis involving federal law enforcement.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday that Noem will face “tough” questions after “stonewalling” Congress.
“Secretary Noem is the public face for an abominable anti-immigrant crusade. Her agents continue to wreak havoc on our cities and act with unspeakable cruelty against children, immigrant families, and American citizens,” Durbin said. “The American people are horrified by what they’re seeing, and Secretary Noem stonewalled Congress for months because she knew her conduct was egregious. She will be asked tough questions and held accountable for her reckless and deadly enforcement agenda.”
The secretary’s testimony is the first time she will be appearing before Congress after tensions in Minneapolis and the killing of Good and Pretti.
Saying she had another meeting to get to, Noem left midway through her last hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee in December under intense questioning from Democrats over ICE operations and tactics.
In the hours following the shooting of Pretti, a Minneapolis Veterans Affairs ICU nurse, Noem drew criticism for insinuating he wanted to “massacre” law enforcement before the evidence and investigation was complete. Pretti was licensed to carry a handgun. Video from multiple angles showed that Pretti did not try to draw his gun from his waistband before or during the scuffle with federal agents.
Two Senate Republicans have said Noem should be out of a job, and Democrats have called for her impeachment.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he stands by Noem.
