Here's a story about election security that starts with Venezuelan hacking allegations and ends with nobody finding any Venezuelan hacking. A team working for U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard conducted a little-known investigation into Puerto Rico's electronic voting machines last spring, according to six current and former officials who spoke with Reuters. The probe launched amid unproven claims that Venezuela had tampered with voting systems in the U.S. territory, and it's now raising fresh concerns about the Trump administration's continued focus on election fraud claims.

No Evidence of Foreign Tampering

The officials confirmed that Gabbard's team worked alongside the FBI to examine whether Venezuela had hacked voting machines in Puerto Rico. After all that effort, they found no clear evidence of Venezuelan interference in the territory's elections. So that's one theory down.

Gabbard's office acknowledged the May 2025 investigation but pushed back on the Venezuelan angle, saying the review actually focused on cybersecurity weaknesses in Puerto Rico's voting infrastructure. Her office explained that an unspecified number of machines and copies of election data were seized as part of "standard practice in forensics analysis." And while they didn't find any Venezuelan hackers, they did discover "extremely concerning cybersecurity and operational deployment practices that pose a significant risk to US elections."

Officials familiar with the matter told Reuters the Puerto Rico case seems to be part of a broader pattern. Trump-aligned aides continue pursuing voter fraud claims that trace back to his 2020 election loss and have carried into his second term.

Blurring Traditional Boundaries

The Puerto Rico operation involved coordination with an FBI field office in Florida and a mixed team of national security officials, law enforcement agents, and contractors, according to two people with knowledge of the probe. Here's where things get constitutionally interesting: domestic election security typically falls under the purview of law enforcement and state officials, not the intelligence community. Some experts argue Gabbard has been blurring that traditional division of responsibilities.

Her recent appearance at an FBI raid on an election warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia as part of a separate probe into Donald Trump's contested 2020 loss there has already sparked bipartisan concern. Critics worry the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is overstepping its authority by getting involved in politically charged domestic cases.

Foreign Interference Claim Provided Legal Opening

So why was the intelligence community investigating Puerto Rico voting machines in the first place? Reuters' sources explained that allegations of tampering by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's government initially framed this as a potential foreign interference issue. That's significant because foreign interference falls squarely within ODNI's legal authority. The problem is that no public evidence has materialized to back up those Venezuelan hacking claims.

Maduro, who denies U.S. charges that he operated a narco-trafficking enterprise, was seized by American forces in Caracas in January and brought to New York to face prosecution. That move further intensified regional tensions.

The episode adds to mounting scrutiny of Gabbard's tenure leading the intelligence community. She's already faced criticism over sweeping internal cuts at ODNI, which she defended by arguing the agency had become "bloated and inefficient" and prone to leaks.