Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence (DNI), has responded to allegations that she improperly handled highly classified intelligence regarding a phone call flagged by the National Security Agency (NSA) last spring.
Why It Matters
The claims come from a whistleblower complaint and have drawn national attention over the oversight of U.S. intelligence operations. The allegations raise questions about the interaction between senior intelligence officials and the White House, a topic that has been politically sensitive in recent years. Handling classified intelligence improperly can have significant implications for national security, trust in the intelligence community, and the integrity of U.S. oversight mechanisms.
What To Know
The whistleblower complaint, submitted in May, claimed the NSA detected a phone conversation between foreign intelligence officials and a person linked to President Donald Trump, according to The Guardian.
Instead of allowing the NSA to distribute its intelligence report, Gabbard allegedly brought a paper copy of the report to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and directed the NSA to transmit the details to her office, rather than publishing it, per the report.
A spokesperson for Gabbard’s office told The Guardian, “This story is false. Every single action taken by DNI Gabbard was fully within her legal and statutory authority, and these politically motivated attempts to manipulate highly classified information undermine the essential national security work being done by great Americans in the intelligence community every day.
“This is yet another attempt to distract from the fact that both a [former President Joe] Biden-era and Trump-appointed Intelligence community inspector general already found the allegations against DNI Gabbard baseless,” the statement said.
In May 2025, a whistleblower contacted the intelligence community inspector general hotline, claiming that a highly classified intelligence report had been withheld from standard distribution and that an intelligence community lawyer had failed to notify the Justice Department of a potential crime, allegedly for political reasons, according to a letter shared with congressional intelligence committees this week.
What People Are Saying
DNI Tulsi Gabbard wrote in a post on X: “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. The first time I saw the whistleblower complaint was two weeks ago when I had to review it to provide guidance on how it should be securely shared with Congress.”
Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said at a press conference: “The law is clear: when a whistleblower makes a complaint and wants to get it before Congress the agency has 21 days to relay it. This whistleblower complaint was issued in May. We didn’t receive it until February.”
Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote in a post on X: “I agree with not one but two inspectors general—one of whom served under Biden—who concluded that the complaint isn’t credible.”
WhistleblowerAid.org chief legal counsel Andrew P. Bakaj told The Guardian: “The NSA picked up a phone call between two members of foreign intelligence involving someone close to the Trump White House The NSA does not monitor individuals without a reason.”
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