U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently rejected allegations by lawmakers that she “hid a whistleblower complaint in a safe” for “eight months.”
For context, a top-secret complaint was made by a US intelligence official with the intelligence community’s inspector general in May 2025, alleging wrongdoing related to Gabbard.
Later in November, Andrew Bakaj sent a letter to Gabbard’s office, House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees, per Reuters, alleging that she delayed the sharing of the May 2025 whistleblower complaint with lawmakers.
Bakaj also alleged that the whistleblower had asked to share the May 2025 complaint with the lawmakers in June. However, Warner, D-Va., the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, in a statement to NBC on Thursday, said they received the complaint in February 2026, and “much of it was redacted.”
Speaking about the delay, Warner said that Tulsi Gabbard is “either not competent to do the job, or if her legal advisors 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 added.
Addressing the allegations in an X post shared on February 8, 2026, Gabbard called out “Senator Mark Warner and his friends in the Propaganda Media” for “repeatedly” lying to the “American people that I or the ODNI ‘hid’ a whistleblower complaint in a safe for eight months,” and called it a “blatant lie.”
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. This is a blatant lie.
The truth:
– I am not now, nor have I ever been, in possession or…
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) February 7, 2026
Writing the “truth,” Gabbard said that she has never been in “possession or control” of the whistleblower’s complaint, which, according to her, ultimately means that she “obviously could not have ‘hidden’ it in a safe.”
She alleged that “Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson was in “possession of and responsible for securing the complaint for months.”
The 44-year-old continued to claim that she saw the complaint two weeks ago for the first time “when I had to review it to provide guidance on how it should be securely shared with Congress.”
Sharing a detailed chronology of the situation, Tulsi Gabbard shared that she first became aware of the whistleblower complaint in June 2025, which, according to her, “neither Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson nor current IC Inspector General Chris Fox found the complaint to be credible.”
According to NBC News, the press secretary for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Olivia Coleman, confirmed the same that neither IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson nor current IC Inspector General Chris Fox found the complaint “credible.”
Furthermore, in the X post, Gabbard highlighted that “The complaint required special handling and storage in a safe because the complainant chose to include highly sensitive information within the complaint itself rather than referencing the sensitive reporting and leaving the complaint at a lower level of classification.”
“Security standards for complaints that include such sensitive intelligence required the Inspector General to keep the complaint and the intelligence referenced secured in a safe from the time the complaint was made, until now,” she continued.
Gabbard added that Johnson completed her review of the complaint in June 2025 and no “further oversight or investigative activity took place.”
While she was being communicated directly by Johnson throughout the course of the investigation, “neither she nor anyone from her office informed me that the Whistleblower chose to send the complaint to Congress which would require me to issue security instructions.”
She was made aware of “the need to provide security guidance by IC Inspector General Chris Fox on December 4, 2025, which he detailed in his letter to Congress,” Gabbard added.
“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,” the post continued.
Concluding her post, Gabbard accused Warner of spreading lies and “baseless” accusations for “political gain,” stating his actions “undermines our national security and is a disservice to the American people and the Intelligence Community.”
Later, in an email statement shared with NBC News on Saturday, Warner’s communications director, Rachel Cohen, said that Tulsi 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.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. backed Tulsi Gabbard’s claims in an X post shared on February 8, stating, “I have reviewed this ‘whistleblower’ complaint and the inspector general handling of it.”
“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 said.
I have reviewed this “whistleblower” complaint and the inspector general handling of it. 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…
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) February 5, 2026
He continued, “To be frank, it seems like just another effort by the president’s critics in and out of government to undermine policies that they don’t like; it’s definitely not credible allegations of waste, fraud, or abuse.”
