A criminal referral tied to the intelligence community’s handling of the complaint that sparked President Donald Trump’s first impeachment was sent to the Justice Department on Wednesday, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“ODNI can confirm a criminal referral was sent to the DOJ related to one or more former employees of the Intelligence Community and their role in the 2019 impeachment of President Trump,” a spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
The referral targets “one or more” former intelligence officials, but Fox News reported that an intelligence official described the referral as broad while specifically directed at former Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson and the whistleblower whose complaint triggered the 2019 impeachment proceedings.
The move follows a wave of newly declassified records released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Monday. Those documents, along with congressional transcripts, showed the whistleblower contacted congressional Democrats before filing his complaint to the inspector general, suggesting a level of coordination with Trump’s opponents that was not known at the time Congress and the media treated the whistleblower complaint as nonpartisan.
The documents have been framed by administration officials as evidence of a “coordinated effort” inside the intelligence community to advance a narrative that led to Trump’s impeachment.
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