In the spring of 2025, the National Security Agency allegedly detected evidence of a call between a person close to President Donald Trump and an individual associated with foreign intelligence, according to a whistleblower.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, rather than let the NSA distribute information about its evidence, allegedly took a paper copy of the intelligence to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, then told the NSA not to publish its intelligence report. Instead, Gabbard allegedly instructed officials to transmit the details directly to her office, the whistleblower’s lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, told The Guardian.
The allegations, which Gabbard’s office strongly denies, are part of a standoff between the whistleblower, who alleges intelligence officials have slow-walked the disclosure of their complaint, and Trump administration intelligence officials, who allege they have followed the law in handling the highly sensitive claims.
“This story is false,” a spokesperson for Gabbard’s office said in response to the Guardian report. “Every single action taken by DNI Gabbard was fully within her legal and statutory authority, and these politically motivated attempts to manipulate highly classified information undermine the essential national security work being done by great Americans in the Intelligence Community every day.”
“I am not now, nor have I ever been, in possession or control of the Whistleblower’s complaint, so I obviously could not have ‘hidden’ it in a safe,” Gabbard wrote in a statement on X on Saturday, referring to past news reports that the whistleblower complaint was being kept under lock and key. “Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson was in possession of and responsible for securing the complaint for months.”
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“The first time I saw the whistleblower complaint was 2 weeks ago when I had to review it to provide guidance on how it should be securely shared with Congress,” Gabbard added.
The alleged call at issue involved two foreign nationals discussing a person close to President Trump as well as Iran, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing someone familiar with material that’s been used to brief members of Congress.
The Independent has contacted the White House and NSA for comment.
In May of last year, the intelligence community inspector general hotline received a whistleblower complaint alleging that “distribution of a highly classified intelligence report” was restricted and that an intelligence community lawyer failed to “report a potential crime” to the Justice Department, both for “political purposes,” according to a letter sent to lawmakers on the congressional intelligence committees this week.
The complaint, first raised in March of 2025, was not shared with Congress until this week, despite precedent that such allegations are usually transmitted to lawmakers within weeks.
After receiving the complaint, the acting inspector general at the time, Tamara Johnson, determined that the first allegation didn’t appear credible and was unable to assess the credibility of the second allegation, according to the letter from Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Christopher Fox, which was also published on X.
The White House reviewed the complaint for a potential assertion of executive privilege, which preserves the confidentiality of certain internal government communications, according to the letter.
In the letter, Fox wrote that had he reviewed the original complaint himself to start, he wouldn’t have flagged it as urgent.
He added that the government shutdown, staff turnover, and the legal complexity of the allegations prompted the slower-than-usual release to Congress.
The complaint has provoked a spectrum of reactions in Washington.
Bakaj, the whistleblower lawyer, alleges that Gabbard has failed to meet a legal mandate to give the whistleblower legal guidance on disclosing information to the congressional intelligence committees, one of the options available to whistleblowers.
“We are now moving forward with plans to provide an unclassified briefing to the committees and will be in touch with them on Monday,” Bakaj wrote on Bluesky on Friday.
Reaction has split along partisan lines.
“I have reviewed this ‘whistleblower’ complaint and the inspector general handling of it,” Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, wrote on X, calling the allegations “another effort by the president’s critics in and out of government to undermine policies that they don’t like.”
“I agree with both inspectors general who have evaluated the matter: the complaint is not credible and the inspectors general and the DNI took the necessary steps to ensure the material has handled and transmitted appropriately in accordance with law,” he added.
Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, has alleged the delays in transmitting the allegations are an effort to “bury the complaint.”
“The law is clear: when a whistleblower makes a complaint and wants to get it before Congress the agency has 21 days to relay it,” he said at a Thursday press conference. “This whistleblower complaint was issued in May. We didn’t receive it until February.”
