Donald Trump’s spy chief has locked a potentially explosive whistleblower complaint against her away in a safe as she battles with lawyers about sharing its details with Congress.
The exact contents of the complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are mired in secrecy but described as possibly posing “grave damage to national security” if disclosed, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Filed by an unidentified intelligence official, the complaint against Gabbard also includes a separate allegation involving another federal agency and potential claims of executive privilege concerning the White House.
Gabbard’s office maintains the complaint is “baseless and politically motivated.”
The whistleblower first filed the document in May 2025 with the inspector general of the intelligence community.
Andrew Bakaj, a lawyer for the whistleblower, has reportedly written to Gabbard accusing the national intelligence chief of deliberately stonewalling the complaint’s disclosure to lawmakers.
In particular, Bakaj accuses Gabbard and her team of not providing any information on whether it had found the complaint credible, or any guidance on how to share the document with relevant members of Congress.
“From my experience, it is confounding for [Gabbard’s office] to take weeks—let alone eight months—to transmit a disclosure to Congress,” the attorney told WSJ in a statement.
A representative for the intelligence community’s inspector general said: “Some complaints involve exceptionally sensitive materials necessitating special handling and storage requirements. This case is one of them.”
Bakaj reportedly shared his letter to Gabbard with Congress in November.
Neither the House nor the Senate was aware of the complaint’s existence prior to that point, and multiple Democratic staffers have since made efforts to learn of its contents.
Trump has largely sidelined Gabbard from national security decisions in the MAGA Cabinet. He has instead charged her with proving his long-running but repeatedly debunked claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Trump lost the November 2020 election by 74 electoral college votes and 4.5 percent of the popular vote.
Gabbard was spotted last week attending an FBI raid at an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, where Trump was previously charged with attempting to overturn the results of those polls.
The county has long served as a centerpiece of MAGA conspiracy theories about that election, featuring bogus claims about suitcases of fraudulent ballots and illegal late-night counts that Republican poll-watchers were excluded from.
FBI agents are understood to have removed ballots, voting machine tapes, voter rolls and other records from the facility last week.
Gabbard has also reportedly spoken with foreign representatives about unproven allegations of interference in the 2020 election and is thought to be preparing a report on her findings.
Against Trump’s long-running claims of rigging, The Wall Street Journal previously reported that MAGA administration officials have discussed the possibility of executive orders on voting ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
Those polls currently appear to promise strong performances for Democratic candidates in the race for both the House and Senate.
