Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released documents on Monday that she claimed revealed a “deep state” conspiracy behind President Trump’s first impeachment — the latest in a pattern of behavior that Democratic lawmakers say reveals a director of national intelligence willing to distort facts to serve the president’s grievances.
The documents, which Gabbard said proved that a former inspector general and Democratic lawmakers had coordinated to weaponize the whistleblower process against Trump, fell short of that claim. Their contents do not describe specific new examples of coordination of the whistleblower working “hand in glove” with Democrats.
They do describe information that Republicans say was not shared with Trump’s impeachment defense lawyers, which they argue undermined the whistleblower’s credibility. They included the whistleblower, a CIA officer who was an expert on Ukraine, working closely with President Joe Biden on Ukraine issues, receiving death threats from Trump supporters and being a registered Democrat.
The documents also include positive descriptions of the whistleblower, including a colleague describing them as “star performer” who was “very detail oriented,”credible and trustworthy and someone who was “deliberate, methodical and very squared away.”
The documents note a supervisor’s frustration that the whistleblower had not given her more notice before filing a complaint. But the supervisor also described the whistleblower as an “excellent employee” and a “credible person” who had “credibility across the intelligence community.”
Atkinson noted that his preliminary review “identified some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate, such evidence did not change my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern “appears credible,” particularly given the other information the ICIG obtained during its preliminary review.”
Gabbard, for her part, framed her release in sweeping terms. “Deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that was used by Congress to usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected President of the United States,” she said in a statement.
She accused the intelligence community’s inspector general at the time, Michael Atkinson, a former career Justice Department lawyer, of incorrectly determining that the complaint regarding Trump’s 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was of “urgent concern,” “appears credible” and must be reported to Congress.
“Inspector General Atkinson failed to uphold his responsibility to the American people, putting political motivations over the truth,” Gabbard wrote. “And this, along with the politicization of the whistleblower process by a former CIA employee who was working hand in glove with Democrats in Congress, are egregious examples of the deep state playbook on how to weaponize the Intelligence Community.”
Atkinson did not respond to a request for comment.
Democrats dismissed Gabbard’s claims as false, calling them the latest example of her trafficking in conspiracy theories to please Trump. Several warned that Gabbard — who has taken a lead role in backing Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — is laying the groundwork to cast doubt about Democratic victories in the November midterm elections.
“Director Gabbard’s latest claims aren’t about accountability — they’re about rewriting history to serve Donald Trump,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “She has shown a willingness to say or do whatever it takes to stay in his good graces.”
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said that Atkinson was right to find the whistleblower credible and share their complaint with Congress.
“Everyone can read the transcript of the president’s attempt to extort President Zelenskyy,” Himes said, referring to a call where Trump pressured the Ukrainian leader to investigate his then-political rival, Joe Biden. “That was an impeachable offense, and no amount of dust-kicking and sycophancy can obscure it.”
Olivia Coleman, a spokeswoman for Gabbard, defended her work. “Legacy media spent years propping up Democrats who peddled these talking points, and now, DNI Gabbard has declassified evidence showing they were wrong — that is available for all Americans to view,” Coleman said.
She urged Americans to “review the evidence for themselves and stop listening to the members of Congress who steered the public wrong once before.”
Warner said Gabbard’s claims raised “serious concerns about how far she might be willing to go to please him — even if it requires manufacturing or manipulating intelligence to justify his desire to ‘take over’ our elections.”
Gabbard is leading an effort to look for evidence of fraud in the 2020 election in Georgia, Puerto Rico and Arizona. She was present when FBI agents seized voting records and machines in Fulton County, Ga., last year.
Coleman defended Gabbard investigations of the 2020 election, saying “we’ve debunked these election claims more times than I can count, including when the DNI herself debunked them during her congressional hearing.”
Himes said that Gabbard was aiding efforts by Trump and foreign powers to erode Americans’ confidence in election results.
“In their wildest dreams, Putin and his intelligence agencies could not have hoped that a decade after the 2016 election, we would still be politicizing or criminalizing the simple principle that we oppose foreign interference in our elections.”
Himes also questioned Gabbard’s choice of priorities.
“I struggle to understand how the release of these transcripts — which contain little that is not already publicly known — is a matter that deserves the DNI’s time and attention,” Himes said. “We are at war with Iran. The DOD is illegally blowing up boats in the Caribbean. The conflict in Ukraine rages on. There are so many actual national security priorities that the IC could focus its efforts on.”
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