Whistleblower attacks US intelligence chief. “So secret Congress couldn't see it”

A US intelligence employee submitted last year notice against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; The complaint is so classified that it has not been forwarded to Congress for months, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. However, some of the reports were not considered credible.

According to WSJ, which cites US officials and people privy to the matter, the complaint against Gabbard and an unspecified unit within one of the federal agencies was filed in May last year, but “it is so top secret that it sparked months of disputes over how to make it available to Congress.” The lawyer representing the whistleblower, Andrew Bakaj, was also unable to learn the content of the notification. The document may also refer to the White House.

In the opinion of one of the daily's sources, revealing the content of the document could cause serious damage to national security. As “WSJ” notes, due to the sensitivity of its content, the complaint has not yet been forwarded to Congress, which is an extraordinary situation.

However, the daily notes that the inspector general at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) did not find the accusations against Gabbard credible, but was unable to assess the credibility of the rest of the complaint about another agency.

The publication of the WSJ article was condemned by Gabbard spokeswoman Olivia Coleman, who accused the newspaper of “clickbait” and denied that the complaint had not been forwarded to Congress.

“Contrary to false reports, there was no delay (…) and the whistleblower complaint is being reviewed by the congressional intelligence committees,” Coleman said on the X platform.

“This is a classic case of a politically motivated individual weaponizing his intelligence position by filing a baseless complaint and then cloaking it in top secret information to create 1) a false plot, 2) an artificial narrative, and 3) conditions that make it significantly more difficult to develop 'security guidelines' to submit to Congress,” she said.

The activities of Gabbard, known for her pro-Russian and anti-interventionist views, as a coordinator and supervisor of the intelligence services have been controversial in the US from the beginning. According to reports, among others: In recent months, WSJ has been removed from decision-making processes on key White House policy issues, including strikes against Venezuela and Iran. Gabbard, however, is taking part in an investigation into alleged election fraud in 2020, which raised the eyebrows of many commentators.

From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)

osk/mal/