Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has withheld from members of Congress for eight months a complaint alleging misconduct by her, an attorney for the person making the allegations said Monday, arguing there is no justification for the delay. Andrew Bakaj said he could not identify his client, name the client’s employer, or offer specifics about the complaint because of the nature of the work connected to the allegations. He said the complainant reviewed a route that federal law allows: seeking referral of the complaint to the House and Senate intelligence committees—an option that, Bakaj said, has not happened since last spring.
Bakaj said the complaint was reviewed by the office of the intelligence community’s inspector general, which Gabbard’s office described as finding the allegations not credible. After that review, Bakaj said the complainant sought referral to the congressional intelligence committees, but the attorney said the referral has not occurred. He said there has been no reason to keep the complaint from Congress for so long.
Gabbard’s press secretary, Olivia Coleman, disputed Bakaj’s characterization of the process. Coleman said there was no delay in getting the complaint to the intelligence committees, while adding that the number of classified details in the complaint made the review process “substantially more difficult.” In a post on X, Coleman also wrote that Gabbard “has always and will continue to support whistleblower’s and their right, under the law, to submit complaints to Congress, even if they are completely baseless like this one.”
Gabbard’s office also disputed the underlying claims in the complaint. Coleman said the inspector general who deemed the complaint non-credible was not selected by Gabbard, and said that the inspector general began work during then-President Joe Biden’s administration. The inspector general’s office, which oversees independent oversight of the intelligence community, did not immediately respond to questions about the complaint.
The dispute comes as questions about intelligence oversight continue to swirl around Gabbard. The AP reported that she was on site last week when the FBI served a search warrant on election offices in Georgia central to former President Donald Trump’s disproven claims about fraud in the 2020 election. Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees have raised questions about that role.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said through a spokesperson that Gabbard pledged under oath during her confirmation hearing that she would protect whistleblowers and make sure Congress was kept informed. “We expect her to honor those commitments and comply with both the letter and the spirit of the law,” Warner’s office said in a statement.
Bakaj, meanwhile, said he has asked Congress to investigate the handling of the complaint. He previously represented an intelligence community whistleblower whose account of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy helped initiate the first of two impeachment cases against the Republican leader during his first term. The House impeached Trump, and the Senate acquitted him in February 2020 over the call in which he asked Zelenskyy for a “favor” to announce an investigation into Democrats, including 2020 rival Joe Biden.