{"id":49841,"date":"2026-02-03T09:24:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=49841"},"modified":"2026-02-03T11:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:12:16","slug":"whistleblower-complaint-so-highly-classified-what-in-the-world-is-really-going-on-with-director-of-national-intelligence-tulsi-gabbard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=49841","title":{"rendered":"

“Whistleblower complaint so highly classified….”<\/span> — What in the world is really going on with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard?!<\/i><\/span><\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

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WASHINGTON\u2014A U.S. intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence\u00a0Tulsi Gabbard\u00a0in a whistleblower complaint that is so highly classified it has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n

The filing of the complaint has prompted a continuing, behind-the-scenes struggle about how to assess and handle it, with the whistleblower\u2019s lawyer accusing Gabbard of stonewalling the complaint. Gabbard\u2019s office rejects that characterization, contending it is navigating a unique set of circumstances and working to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n

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A cloak-and-dagger mystery reminiscent of a John le Carr\u00e9 novel is swirling around the complaint, which is said to be locked in a safe. Disclosure of its contents could cause \u201cgrave damage to national security,\u201d one official said. It also implicates another federal agency beyond Gabbard\u2019s, and raises potential claims of executive privilege that may involve the White House, officials said.<\/p>\n

The complaint was filed last May with the intelligence community\u2019s inspector general, according to a November letter that the whistleblower\u2019s lawyer addressed to Gabbard. The letter, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, accused Gabbard\u2019s office of hindering the dissemination of the complaint to lawmakers by failing to provide necessary security guidance on how to do so.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Gabbard\u2019s office confirmed that the complaint concerned Gabbard but dismissed it as \u201cbaseless and politically motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whistleblower\u2019s lawyer,\u00a0Andrew Bakaj, and Gabbard\u2019s office also disagreed on whether the inspector general had made any determinations about the credibility of the complaint. A representative for the inspector general said the office had determined specific allegations against Gabbard weren\u2019t credible, while it couldn\u2019t reach a determination on others. Bakaj said he was never informed that any determinations were reached.<\/p>\n

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Tulsi Gabbard testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last year about worldwide threats.<\/span>\u00a0kevin lamarque\/Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Gabbard has been an enigmatic figure in the Trump administration, sidelined from\u00a0major national-security matters<\/a>\u00a0and tasked with\u00a0investigating the results of the 2020 election<\/a>\u00a0that President\u00a0Trump\u00a0lost.<\/p>\n

The November letter from Bakaj was shared with the House and Senate intelligence panels, making them aware of the complaint\u2019s filing for the first time. Months later, lawmakers still haven\u2019t received the complaint itself. Some Democratic staffers on the intelligence committees have tried to learn more about the complaint in recent weeks, with little success, congressional aides said.<\/p>\n

The complaint is so highly classified that Bakaj said he hasn\u2019t been able to view it himself. The Wall Street Journal couldn\u2019t learn the substance of the allegations.<\/p>\n

Representatives for the Senate and House intelligence committees declined to comment.<\/p>\n

An employee alleging wrongdoing is allowed to share the complaint directly with congressional intelligence committees as long as the director of national intelligence provides instructions on how to securely transmit it. There is no requirement for a precise timeline on doing so, but typically that process occurs within a matter of weeks, the officials and experts said.<\/p>\n

Gabbard answered written questions about the allegations from the inspector general\u2019s office, a senior official at the spy agency said. That prompted the acting inspector general at the time,\u00a0Tamara Johnson, to determine the allegations specifically about Gabbard weren\u2019t credible, the official said. Johnson remains employed at the agency, which didn\u2019t make her available for an interview.<\/p>\n

The complaint includes a separate allegation about \u201can office within a different federal agency,\u201d upon which the watchdog\u2019s office wasn\u2019t able to make a credibility determination, the representative for that office said. The Wall Street Journal couldn\u2019t determine the identity of the other federal agency.<\/p>\n

Gabbard provided her staff with required guidance to \u201csupport the eventual transmission of appropriate details to Congress,\u201d the spokeswoman at Gabbard\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

Bakaj, the whistleblower\u2019s lawyer, previously\u00a0advised a Central Intelligence Agency officer<\/a>\u00a0who in 2019 filed a complaint that sparked\u00a0Trump\u2019s first impeachment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my experience, it is confounding for [Gabbard\u2019s office] to take weeks\u2014let alone eight months\u2014to transmit a disclosure to Congress,\u201d Bakaj, who is chief legal counsel at the nonprofit WhistleblowerAid.org, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Amid the limbo, the Gabbard complaint has been locked in a safe in the office, a person familiar with the matter said. Asked about the safe, the inspector-general representative said: \u201cSome complaints involve exceptionally sensitive materials necessitating special handling and storage requirements. This case is one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the material in the complaint is also \u201cmarked as \u2018attorney-client privileged,\u2019 \u201d and could be subject to \u201cexecutive privilege,\u201d which generally refers to the power of the president to withhold confidential information or private discussions from Congress or the judicial branch, the inspector general\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

The inspector general received the complaint under a statute through which intelligence-community employees and contractors have filed around a dozen such \u201curgent concern\u201d allegations each year in recent years, according to a review of semiannual reports.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a02019 whistleblower complaint<\/a>, a CIA officer alleged that Trump sought to use the powers of his office\u00a0to push Ukraine to investigate<\/a>\u00a0Democratic rival\u00a0Joe Biden. The Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump over the issue, but the GOP-controlled Senate declined to convict him.<\/p>\n

Days after Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025,\u00a0he fired a raft of inspectors general<\/a>\u00a0across government, which Democrats said was an effort to \u201cpurge\u201d his administration of independent watchdogs to conceal wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Last year Gabbard also fired the acting counsel in the intelligence community\u2019s inspector general\u2019s office, and appointed a senior adviser within the office who reported directly to Gabbard. Democrats said the moves violated the law.<\/p>\n

In October, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed a new intelligence-community inspector general,\u00a0Christopher Fox, on a 51-47 vote. No Democrats voted for Fox, who served as an aide to Gabbard in her role as spy chief before taking the oversight job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Copyright \u00a92026\u00a0Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8<\/p>\n

Appeared in the February 3, 2026, print edition as ‘Gabbard Complaint Stalls in Her Agency’.<\/p>\n

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Dustin Volz<\/a>\u00a0is a Washington-based cybersecurity and intelligence reporter for The Wall Street Journal. His coverage focuses on the national security and geopolitical dimensions of nation-state hacking conflict, digital espionage, online influence operations, election interference, and government surveillance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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Ryan Barber is a reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s Washington, D.C. bureau, where he covers the Justice Department and legal affairs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

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