Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard responded to criticism from Sen. Mark Warner and others that she allegedly “hid” a whistleblower’s complaint.
“Senator Mark Warner and his friends in the Propaganda Media have repeatedly lied to the American people that I or the ODNI ‘hid’ a whistleblower complaint in a safe for eight months,” Gabbard said in a post on X. “This is a blatant lie.”
A U.S. intelligence official alleged wrongdoing by Gabbard in the handling of a whistleblower complaint that was filed with the intelligence community’s inspector general in 2025, according to the official’s lawyer and Gabbard’s office. The official’s attorney, Andrew Bakaj, said the complaint was filed with the intelligence community’s inspector general in May and the whistleblower asked in June to share their complaint with lawmakers.
Warner, D-Va., is the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He told NBC News on Thursday that Congress didn’t receive the complaint until February and that “much of it was redacted.”
The senator said the monthslong delay in sharing the complaint with lawmakers showed that Gabbard is “either not competent to do the job, or if her legal advisers didn’t tell her, she didn’t have competent legal advice.”
“This was, again, a complete avoidance of, and I think it was an effort to try to bury this whistleblower complaint,” Warner said.
Gabbard addressed the criticism in a long post Saturday, writing that she is not, and never has been, in possession or control of the complaint. She said that the inspector general “was in possession of and responsible for securing the complaint for months.”
Gabbard said the first time that she saw the complaint was two weeks ago, “when I had to review it to provide guidance on how it should be securely shared with Congress.”
She said the complaint “contains baseless allegations,” but nonetheless needed to be secured in a safe like all whistleblower complaints that contain “highly classified and compartmented intelligence.”
Gabbard went on to lay out a timeline in her post, writing that she first became aware of the complaint against her in June, but that neither then-acting Inspector General Tamara Johnson nor current Inspector General Christopher Fox — who started his role on Oct. 7, 2025 — found it to be credible.
Olivia Coleman, press secretary for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told NBC News in an email that both inspectors general “did not find the complaint credible.”
Gabbard said that while she communicated with Johnson during the investigation, she was not informed that the whistleblower wished to show the complaint to Congress and therefore did not issue security instructions to do so.
Gabbard said she was “made aware of the need to provide security guidance” by Fox on Dec. 4.
“I took immediate action to provide the security guidance to the Intelligence Community Inspector General who then shared the complaint and referenced intelligence with relevant members of Congress last week,” Gabbard wrote in her post.
“Senator Warner’s decision to spread lies and baseless accusations over the months for political gain, undermines our national security and is a disservice to the American people and the Intelligence Community,” the post continued.
Rachel Cohen, Warner’s communications director, told NBC News in an emailed statement Saturday that Gabbard’s post is “an inaccurate attack that’s entirely on brand for someone who has already and repeatedly proven she’s unqualified to serve as DNI.”
Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit group representing government and private-sector employees who aim to uncover wrongdoing, responded on social media to Gabbard’s statement, saying Saturday that she “continues to make unfounded claims about our whistleblower client’s complaint.”
The group attached a letter dated June 6, 2025, from the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community that stated that Gabbard — whose post said “the first time I saw the whistleblower complaint was 2 weeks ago” — was provided with the full complaint after a “determination” that happened in June 2025.
“What was going on in your office between June 5 and December 4 that you weren’t made aware of the request? Did you look into why for six months the ICIG neglected to relay the request for guidance?” the post said.
The group also criticized Gabbard’s assertion that Johnson did not find the complaint credible, saying “the ICIG was simply unable to make a determination in the 14-day window.”
Bakaj on Monday accused Gabbard of trying to hide the complaint from Congress.
“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 released by Whistleblower Aid earlier this week.
Coleman denied any wrongdoing by the director of national intelligence, writing in a post on Monday that the whistleblower was a “politically motivated individual.”
Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a post Tuesday that he concurred with the conclusion that the complaint was not credible.
“The ensuing media firestorm—fed by speculation and little fact—was an attempt to smear @DNIGabbard and the Trump Administration,” Crawford wrote.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who serves as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an X post that he was one of the members of Congress who was briefed on the complaint last week.
“I agree with not one but two inspectors general—one of whom served under Biden—who concluded that the complaint isn’t credible,” Cotton said.
