The office of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) rejects a report about a whistleblower complaint that alleges DNI Tulsi Gabbard limited the distribution of a classified report for political reasons and that a legal office in the intelligence community (IC) did not refer a potential crime to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for political reasons.

One senator who viewed the complaint against Gabbard described it as “bunk.” Gabbard’s team, led by press secretary Olivia Coleman, described the whistleblower complaint as a “classic case of a politically motivated individual weaponizing their position in the Intelligence Community, submitting a baseless complaint and then burying it in highly classified information to create 1) false intrigue, 2) a manufactured narrative, and 3) conditions which make it substantially more difficult to produce “security guidance” for transmittal to Congress.”

Gabbard’s team points to a conclusion from the Biden-era Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG), which looked into the whistleblower’s allegations against Gabbard, and determined that they “did not appear credible.” This is “a fact that [the Wall Street Journal] conveniently buried 13 paragraphs down,” Coleman said.

Despite claims by Democrats, like the ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) that Gabbard delayed the release of the whistleblower complaint and that she “does not understand the basic obligations of her role,” an ODNI official explained to the Reporter that “because the complaint was not deemed credible, there is absolutely no legal requirement for how quickly the DNI must share security guidance related to this whistleblower’s complaint with the IC IG’s office.”

“Given the highly sensitive nature of the information involved in the whistleblower’s baseless complaint, the ‘security guidance’ process can appropriately take longer than the ‘matter of weeks’ alleged by WSJ’s ‘experts,’” the official added. 

Gabbard learned about her responsibility to produce the “security guidance” from the recently-confirmed IC IG, Chris Fox, who has spent nearly two decades in the national security space. “After learning of her responsibility to produce security guidance, DNI Gabbard took immediate action to cut through the bureaucratic red tape and took every step within her power to fulfill her responsibility to provide security guidance for transmittal to Congress,” the DNI official continued.

“There is no ‘cloak and dagger mystery reminiscent of a John le Carre novel,’” the official added. “And the fact that the WSJ — a publication that used to be respected — would describe this complaint as such is further proof that they no longer care about the truth and would rather report already debunked gossip than engage in journalism.”

The DNI’s office also declassified a letter that Fox wrote to Sens. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Warner, along with Reps. Crawford and Jim Himes (D., Conn.) in which the IC IG confirms that “the whistleblower’s allegations against DNI Gabbard were not deemed credible,” Gabbard’s office said.

During her confirmation hearings, Gabbard promised to bring transparency to America’s IC, and her deputy chief of staff, Alexa Henning, noted that the latest controversy is reminiscent of a scandal that aged poorly for its proponents.

“This is what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, [and] Obama did with the 2017 Russia Hoax ICA,” Henning said, referring to the files declassified by Gabbard now known as “Obamagate.” The Washington Reporter was the first outlet to cover Gabbard’s bombshell declassification. “They put the fake Steele Dossier in the highest classified version so they could manipulate Congress and the American people that the bs in that dossier was true and ‘highly classified.’”