A classified whistleblower complaint has become the center of a sharp political fight in Washington, with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard forcefully denying claims that her office improperly delayed its transmission to Congress.
According to the New York Post, the controversy erupted after reports revealed that a whistleblower complaint alleging wrongdoing by Gabbard was filed last May but was not shared with Congress until months later.
Democrats have questioned why the complaint remained undisclosed for so long, while Gabbard insists the accusations are false and politically motivated.
In a lengthy post on X on Saturday, Gabbard rejected claims that she or her office concealed the complaint.
“[Virginia Democrat] Senator Mark Warner and his friends in the Propaganda Media have repeatedly lied to the American people that I or the ODNI ‘hid’ a whistleblower complaint in a safe for eight months,” Gabbard wrote. “This is a blatant lie.”
She emphasized that she never had possession or control of the complaint.
“I am not now, nor have I ever been, in possession or control of the Whistleblower’s complaint, so I obviously could not have ‘hidden’ it in a safe,” she continued. “Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson was in possession of and responsible for securing the complaint for months.”
According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, the highly classified complaint was locked in a safe due to its sensitive nature.
One U.S. official told the newspaper that releasing its contents could cause “grave damage to national security.”
While the substance of the allegations has not been made public, the whistleblower’s attorney has accused Gabbard’s office of slow-walking the process. Her office has denied that claim, calling it “baseless and politically motivated.”
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has argued that the delay violated the law.
“The law is clear,” Warner said Thursday, according to NPR. “I think it was an effort to try to bury this whistleblower complaint.”
Gabbard disputed that interpretation, saying the legal timeline cited by Warner did not apply in this case.
“When a complaint is not found to be credible, there is no timeline under the law for the provision of security guidance,” she wrote. “The ‘21 day’ requirement… only applies when a complaint is determined by the Inspector General to be both urgent AND apparently credible. That was NOT the case here.”
An inspector general representative told the Journal that some allegations in the complaint were found not to be credible, while others remain undetermined.
Gabbard said she first reviewed the complaint in early December after being notified by Intelligence Community Inspector General Chris Fox that security guidance was needed before it could be shared with Congress. She said she acted immediately, and the complaint was later delivered to members of Congress under proper security protocols.
She closed her post by accusing Warner of spreading “lies and baseless accusations over the months for political gain,” warning that such actions “undermine our national security.”
Republicans have rallied behind Gabbard. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said he reviewed the complaint and agreed with inspectors general that it was not credible, calling it “just another effort” to undermine policies critics oppose.
Warner’s office dismissed Gabbard’s remarks as an “inaccurate attack,” keeping the dispute firmly alive on Capitol Hill.
