A whistleblower complaint alleging wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was based on the intercept of a conversation between two foreign citizens discussing a person close to President Donald Trump, according to the whistleblower’s lawyer.
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The two foreign nationals were likely associated with foreign intelligence agencies, and the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was among those who had access to the intercepted conversation, Andrew Bakaj, the attorney for the whistleblower, said in an email.
The whistleblower has alleged that the distribution of the intelligence on the intercepted conversation was restricted among administration officials for political purposes, according to the intelligence community’s inspector general. Gabbard has rejected the allegation as baseless.
The New York Times first reported on the intercept and The Wall Street Journal first reported on the whistleblower complaint.
The complaint was filed in May to the intelligence community’s inspector general and, in June, the whistleblower asked that it be shared with Congress. But the complaint was not delivered to Congress until last week, NBC News has previously reported.
Bakaj, the whistleblower’s lawyer, has accused Gabbard of moving too slowly to share the complaint with Congress and of trying to hide it from lawmakers.
Gabbard has vehemently denied the accusation, ...
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