After 8 Months, Complaint About Gabbard Still Sits in Safe

A whistleblower complaint targeting Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has become so tightly held inside her agency that Congress still hasn't seen it eight months after it was filed. The classified complaint, lodged last May with the intelligence community's inspector general, accuses Gabbard of unspecified misconduct and also involves a second, unidentified federal agency, according to US officials and others familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports. Officials said the document is stored in a safe and contains information deemed so sensitive that releasing it could seriously harm national security and may involve issues of executive privilege.

Gabbard's office confirmed she is the subject of the complaint but calls the allegations "baseless and politically motivated" and ripped the Journal for reporting about it, per the Hill. Her aides said they are dealing with unusually sensitive material and have provided the necessary guidance to allow eventual transmission to Congress. The inspector general's office said acting IG Tamara Johnson found the specific claims against Gabbard not credible, though it could not reach a conclusion on the allegations concerning the other agency. The whistleblower's attorney, Andrew Bakaj, disputed being told of any such findings and said he hasn't been allowed to see the complaint himself.

"After nearly eight months of taking illegal actions to protect herself, the time has come for Tulsi Gabbard to comply with the law and fully release the disclosure to Congress," Bakaj said in a statement, per NBC News. The delay in getting the document to Capitol Hill is highly unusual, watchdog experts say; credible "urgent concern" complaints are normally assessed and relayed within weeks, per the Journal. Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees learned of the filing only after Bakaj sent them a letter in November. The standoff unfolds against broader tensions over internal oversight. Trump, after returning to office in 2025, removed multiple inspectors general, and Gabbard has faced Democratic criticism for replacing key watchdog officials in the intelligence community.