A secret whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard that had been held in a locked safe has finally been shared with Congress after an eight-month standoff.
Inspector General Christopher Fox, the intelligence community watchdog, on Monday evening carried by hand the highly classified allegation to a select group of lawmakers, according to CBS News.
The document was reviewed on a ‘read-and-return’ basis by members and staff of the Gang of Eight, the small bipartisan group who oversee America’s spy agencies.
The whistleblower complaint filed against the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) by a staffer in May alleged that a highly classified report was deliberately suppressed for political reasons.
The complainant also claimed that an intelligence agency’s legal office failed to refer a potential crime to the Justice Department, also for political reasons.
No other details of the whistleblower complaint were made public as Fox stressed only one previous case required such tightly controlled disclosure to Congress.
Fox told lawmakers in a letter approved for public release on Tuesday that the complaint was ‘administratively closed’ by his predecessor in June and no further action was taken.
‘If the same or similar matter came before me today, I would likely determine that the allegations do not meet the statutory definition of “urgent concern,”‘ Fox wrote.
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet Meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC on December 2
President Donald Trump attends Amazon MGM’s Melania World Premiere at The Trump Kennedy Center on January 29
Fox, an ex-Gabbard aide who took over as IG after Donald Trump purged Joe Biden’s watchdogs, briefed Congress after receiving final approval from the DNI chief on Friday.
Fox said in the letter that the complaint was tied up for months while his office sought legal clearance to view the classified complaint. He cited the ‘complexity of the classification’, a 43-day government shutdown that started in October and leadership changes at DNI.
Fox stated that on December 4 he and a senior lawyer, Jack Dever, raised the issue directly with Gabbard, who said she had not previously been told clearance to share the complaint was pending.
Later that day, Dever said that guidance was forthcoming ‘pending a review by the White House Counsel for a potential assertion of executive privilege.’
The complaint’s existence was first revealed Monday by the Wall Street Journal, which likened it to ‘a cloak-and-dagger mystery reminiscent of a John le Carré novel.’
In a statement, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, an Arkansas Republican, said: ‘I concur with the conclusion that the Biden-era IC IG, Tamara Johnson, reached regarding the non-credible nature of the complaint and the re-review that the current IC IG, Chris Fox, conducted, reaching the same conclusion.’
He added: ‘The ensuing media firestorm, fed by speculation and little fact, was an attempt to smear Director Gabbard and the Trump Administration.’
A spokeswoman for Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat, claimed that the incident underlined Gabbard’s incompetence.
‘This timeline makes unmistakably clear that Director Gabbard does not understand the basic obligations of her role – the predictable result of placing someone out of her depth in one of the nation’s most sensitive positions,’ Rachel Cohen said.
‘During her confirmation hearing, Director Gabbard pledged under oath to protect whistleblowers and respect Congress’s oversight role, commitments that come with this office whether she understands them or not.’
IG Johnson, a career civil servant, had determined at the time of the initial complaint that the allegation met the legal threshold of ‘urgent concern’ if true.
But three days later, after receiving new information Johnson wrote another memo which concluded the whistleblower’s complaint was not credible.
United States Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaks on the phone while standing at the edge of a truck loading bay after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant for the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in relation to the 2020 election, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter, in Union City, Georgia, US January 28
A spokeswoman for Gabbard on Monday dismissed the ‘baseless’ complaint and denied stonewalling the whistleblower’s allegations.
DNI spokeswoman Olivia Coleman said: ‘This is a classic case of a politically motivated individual weaponizing their position in the Intelligence Community, submitting a baseless complaint and then burying it in highly classified information to create false intrigue, a manufactured narrative, and conditions which make it substantially more difficult to produce “security guidance” for transmittal to Congress.’
The controversy comes as Gabbard has been sidelined in the Trump administration over major national security matters, including Venezuela and Iran.
Instead, Gabbard has been tasked with verifying Trump’s claims of election fraud stemming from the 2020 election.
A joke circulated around the White House that Gabbard’s DNI title stood for ‘Do Not Invite’ following Nicolas Maduro’s capture last month.
The White House feared that Gabbard, who in 2019 argued against intervention in Venezuela, would not support Operation Absolute Resolve, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly arguing she should be excluded from the mission.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe was front and center as the most senior intelligence official, beamed out in White House pictures that included the President, Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
As DNI, Gabbard is supposed to be Trump’s top intelligence adviser overseeing America’s 18 spy agencies, including the CIA.
Trump publicly rebuked Gabbard in June after she said during congressional testimony that Iran was ‘not building a nuclear weapon.’
The comments were put to the President as he planned to strike the country’s nuclear sites alongside Israel.
‘I don’t care what she said,’ he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
