A highly classified complaint related to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard contained an allegation she withheld classified information “for political purposes,” though the intelligence community’s inspector general determined the allegation “did not appear credible.”
The complaint, from May 2025, first made headlines when the Wall Street Journal reported Monday on the lengthy process taken to prepare the highly sensitive document for lawmaker viewing.
The news that the complaint was deemed not credible and of the allegations within the complaint comes from a new letter given to the top leaders in the Senate and House Intelligence committees. Christopher Fox, the current intelligence community inspector general, sent the letter to Congress on Feb. 2, informing the committee’s leaders of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s process of preparing the complaint for their reading.
Fox received final approval on Jan. 30 from Gabbard to send the complaint to Congress for its review, he wrote in the letter. He specified that the complaint, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, is highly sensitive and poses implications to national security and another federal agency, will be hand-delivered to the intelligence “Gang of Eight” for a “read and return” review with no notes allowed.
According to the outlet, the whistleblower’s lawyer had flagged that the complaint had taken longer than normal to be delivered to Congress. But Fox attributed this delay to several factors, including the complexity of the highly classified complaint, the October government shutdown, and the fall transfer of responsibility from the prior Biden-era acting intelligence community Inspector General Tamara Johnson to Fox once he was confirmed.
“I received a briefing on this matter from IC OIG’s Acting Counsel on 17 October 2025, the day after I was sworn in, and immediately prioritized IC OIG’s transmittal of this complaint to Congress,” Fox wrote in the letter.
Fox further said the first time Gabbard heard about the requested security guidance to allow the DNI to transmit the complaint to Congress, at the request of the whistleblower, was during a Dec. 4 meeting between Fox, Gabbard, and ODNI General Counsel Jack Dever.
“In my meeting with Director Gabbard, I inquired about the security guidance and she revealed to me that the Acting General Counsel prior to Mr. Dever’s confirmation had never informed her of the outstanding requirement for this security guidance, nor had she received any request from IC OIG. Upon learning it was one of my office’s top priorities, Director Gabbard committed to providing the guidance as soon as practicable,” Fox wrote.
Fox wrote in the letter that Johnson has already deemed not credible the first allegation, that Gabbard limited the distribution of highly sensitive documents “for political purposes.” Fox concurred with Johnson’s determination that the allegation “did not appear credible,” while being “unable to assess” the credibility of a second allegation, that the legal office for an intelligence agency failed to report a possible crime to the Department of Justice.
“On 9 June 2025, after receiving newly-obtained evidence, Acting IC IG Johnson issued a supplemental determination memorandum, finding that the first allegation did not appear credible while remaining unable to assess the apparent credibility of the second allegation,” Fox wrote.
Fox, on the first allegation, wrote that “the complainant could not have reasonably known the intent for the limited distribution and offered no evidence beyond his/her own speculation. Numerous permissible reasons exist for limiting distribution of highly sensitive reporting.”
President Donald Trump weighed in on the topic on Tuesday night, reposting on Truth Social a headline from Just The News on the story, “Inspector General confirms whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard ‘did not appear credible.'”
“I concur with the conclusion that the Biden-era IC IG, Tamara Johnson, reached regarding the non-credible nature of the complaint and the re-review that the current IC IG, Chris Fox, conducted, reaching the same conclusion,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AR) told CBS News after viewing the complaint. “The ensuing media firestorm—fed by speculation and little fact—was an attempt to smear Director Gabbard and the Trump Administration.”
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Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told the Associated Press that the review process followed “six months of negotiations” between Congress and the ODNI.
“It took the Gang of Eight six months of negotiation with the director of national intelligence to share that whistleblower complaint,” Warner said. “This is in direct contradiction to what Gabbard testified during her confirmation hearings — that she would protect whistleblowers and share the information of timely matter.”
