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WASHINGTON—A U.S. intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in 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.
The filing of the complaint has prompted a continuing, behind-the-scenes struggle about how to assess and handle it, with the whistleblower’s lawyer accusing Gabbard of stonewalling the complaint. Gabbard’s office rejects that characterization, contending it is navigating a unique set of circumstances and working to resolve the issue.
A cloak-and-dagger mystery reminiscent of a John le Carré novel is swirling around the complaint, which is said to be locked in a safe. Disclosure of its contents could cause “grave damage to national security,” one official said. It also implicates another federal agency beyond Gabbard’s, and raises potential claims of executive privilege that may involve the White House, officials said.
The complaint was filed last May with the intelligence community’s inspector general, according to a November letter that the whistleblower’s lawyer addressed to Gabbard. The letter, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, accused Gabbard’s office of hindering the dissemination of the complaint to lawmakers by failing to provide necessary security guidance on how to do so.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Gabbard’s office confirmed that the complaint concerned Gabbard but dismissed it as “baseless and politically motivated.”
The whistleblower’s lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, and Gabbard’s 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’t credible, while it couldn’t reach a determination on others. Bakaj said he was never informed that any determinations were reached.
Gabbard has been an enigmatic figure in the Trump administration, sidelined from major national-security matters and tasked with investigating the results of the 2020 election that President Trump lost.
The November letter from Bakaj was shared with the House and Senate intelligence panels, making them aware of the complaint’s filing for the first time. Months later, lawmakers still haven’t 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.
The complaint is so highly classified that Bakaj said he hasn’t been able to view it himself. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t learn the substance of the allegations.
Representatives for the Senate and House intelligence committees declined to comment.
The lengthy delay on sending the complaint to Congress is without known precedent, according to watchdog experts and former intelligence officials. The inspector general is generally required to assess whether the complaint is credible within two weeks of receiving it, and share it with lawmakers within another week if it determines it is credible.
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.
Gabbard answered written questions about the allegations from the inspector general’s office, a senior official at the spy agency said. That prompted the acting inspector general at the time, Tamara Johnson, to determine the allegations specifically about Gabbard weren’t credible, the official said. Johnson remains employed at the agency, which didn’t make her available for an interview.
The complaint includes a separate allegation about “an office within a different federal agency,” upon which the watchdog’s office wasn’t able to make a credibility determination, the representative for that office said. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t determine the identity of the other federal agency.
Gabbard provided her staff with required guidance to “support the eventual transmission of appropriate details to Congress,” the spokeswoman at Gabbard’s office said.
Bakaj, the whistleblower’s lawyer, previously advised a Central Intelligence Agency officer who in 2019 filed a complaint that sparked Trump’s first impeachment.
“From my experience, it is confounding for [Gabbard’s office] to take weeks—let alone eight months—to transmit a disclosure to Congress,” Bakaj, who is chief legal counsel at the nonprofit WhistleblowerAid.org, said in a statement.
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: “Some complaints involve exceptionally sensitive materials necessitating special handling and storage requirements. This case is one of them.”
Some of the material in the complaint is also “marked as ‘attorney-client privileged,’ ” and could be subject to “executive privilege,” 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’s office said.
The inspector general received the complaint under a statute through which intelligence-community employees and contractors have filed around a dozen such “urgent concern” allegations each year in recent years, according to a review of semiannual reports.
In a 2019 whistleblower complaint, a CIA officer alleged that Trump sought to use the powers of his office to push Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden. The Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump over the issue, but the GOP-controlled Senate declined to convict him.
Days after Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025, he fired a raft of inspectors general across government, which Democrats said was an effort to “purge” his administration of independent watchdogs to conceal wrongdoing.
Last year Gabbard also fired the acting counsel in the intelligence community’s inspector general’s office, and appointed a senior adviser within the office who reported directly to Gabbard. Democrats said the moves violated the law.
In October, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed a new intelligence-community inspector general, Christopher 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.
The filing of the complaint has prompted a continuing, behind-the-scenes struggle about how to assess and handle it, with the whistleblower’s lawyer accusing Gabbard of stonewalling the complaint. Gabbard’s office rejects that characterization, contending it is navigating a unique set of circumstances and working to resolve the issue.
A cloak-and-dagger mystery reminiscent of a John le Carré novel is swirling around the complaint, which is said to be locked in a safe. Disclosure of its contents could cause “grave damage to national security,” one official said. It also implicates another federal agency beyond Gabbard’s, and raises potential claims of executive privilege that may involve the White House, officials said.
The complaint was filed last May with the intelligence community’s inspector general, according to a November letter that the whistleblower’s lawyer addressed to Gabbard. The letter, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, accused Gabbard’s office of hindering the dissemination of the complaint to lawmakers by failing to provide necessary security guidance on how to do so.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Gabbard’s office confirmed that the complaint concerned Gabbard but dismissed it as “baseless and politically motivated.”
The whistleblower’s lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, and Gabbard’s 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’t credible, while it couldn’t reach a determination on others. Bakaj said he was never informed that any determinations were reached.
Gabbard has been an enigmatic figure in the Trump administration, sidelined from major national-security matters and tasked with investigating the results of the 2020 election that President Trump lost.
The November letter from Bakaj was shared with the House and Senate intelligence panels, making them aware of the complaint’s filing for the first time. Months later, lawmakers still haven’t 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.
The complaint is so highly classified that Bakaj said he hasn’t been able to view it himself. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t learn the substance of the allegations.
Representatives for the Senate and House intelligence committees declined to comment.
The lengthy delay on sending the complaint to Congress is without known precedent, according to watchdog experts and former intelligence officials. The inspector general is generally required to assess whether the complaint is credible within two weeks of receiving it, and share it with lawmakers within another week if it determines it is credible.
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.
Gabbard answered written questions about the allegations from the inspector general’s office, a senior official at the spy agency said. That prompted the acting inspector general at the time, Tamara Johnson, to determine the allegations specifically about Gabbard weren’t credible, the official said. Johnson remains employed at the agency, which didn’t make her available for an interview.
The complaint includes a separate allegation about “an office within a different federal agency,” upon which the watchdog’s office wasn’t able to make a credibility determination, the representative for that office said. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t determine the identity of the other federal agency.
Gabbard provided her staff with required guidance to “support the eventual transmission of appropriate details to Congress,” the spokeswoman at Gabbard’s office said.
Bakaj, the whistleblower’s lawyer, previously advised a Central Intelligence Agency officer who in 2019 filed a complaint that sparked Trump’s first impeachment.
“From my experience, it is confounding for [Gabbard’s office] to take weeks—let alone eight months—to transmit a disclosure to Congress,” Bakaj, who is chief legal counsel at the nonprofit WhistleblowerAid.org, said in a statement.
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: “Some complaints involve exceptionally sensitive materials necessitating special handling and storage requirements. This case is one of them.”
Some of the material in the complaint is also “marked as ‘attorney-client privileged,’ ” and could be subject to “executive privilege,” 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’s office said.
The inspector general received the complaint under a statute through which intelligence-community employees and contractors have filed around a dozen such “urgent concern” allegations each year in recent years, according to a review of semiannual reports.
In a 2019 whistleblower complaint, a CIA officer alleged that Trump sought to use the powers of his office to push Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden. The Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump over the issue, but the GOP-controlled Senate declined to convict him.
Days after Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025, he fired a raft of inspectors general across government, which Democrats said was an effort to “purge” his administration of independent watchdogs to conceal wrongdoing.
Last year Gabbard also fired the acting counsel in the intelligence community’s inspector general’s office, and appointed a senior adviser within the office who reported directly to Gabbard. Democrats said the moves violated the law.
In October, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed a new intelligence-community inspector general, Christopher 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.
