Cole texted me about an hour or so ago and asked if I could: do a separate post explaining the current gabbard scandal and cut through all the confusing lingo.”
My initial response was:
Other than a whistleblower complaint has been filed and she’s screwing around with it via her hand picked IG, I don’t know what else there is to explain. But I’ll poke around and if I see something, I’ll do a post.
And then I saw the new reporting from The Guardian.
There are seven different things going on based on the reporting.
- In spring 2025, the National Security Agency (NSA) “detected evidence of an unusual phone call between an individual associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower’s attorney briefed on the existence of the call.”
- Rather than have this intelligence briefed out, Gabbard put it on close hold and took directly to the White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The next day, Gabbard quashed the intelligence report completely.
- An intelligence officer filed a whistleblower complaint over this.
- The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) Inspector General’s (IG) Office determined that “the Inspector General could not determine if the allegations appear credible.” Basically, the IG investigation concluded that they did not have enough information to assess whether something illegal had or had not taken place. Which would indicate either some information was being withheld or someone was stonewalling.
- Gabbard assigned one of her top advisors, Dennis Kirk, to the IG’s office two week’s after the whistleblower first made contact through the whistleblower hotline.
- The complaint also alleges that the ODNI General Counsel’s Office failed to make a referral of a potential crime to DOJ.
- Gabbard’s office then jerked the whistleblower and his attorney around for eight months by refusing to provide the required guidance for transmission of the complaint to the appropriate congressional oversight committees.
- Gabbard’s office finally released the complaint to the appropriate members of Congress last Tuesday, however it was heavily redacted under a claim of executive privilege.
What I find the most interesting parts of the reporting, especially given that we do not know the actual details of who the parties to the call were and what was discussed, are the immediate attempts to cover Trump as if whomever was involved and whatever they said exposed him to some sort of jeopardy. At one level it makes sense to try to isolate the president from a potential intelligence threat via someone close to him, so in that regard reaching out to the Chief of Staff to put her on notice isn’t completely unusual. But then squelching the intelligence reporting twenty-four hours later, sitting on the whistleblower complaint for eight months in violation of the law, and ultimately heavily redacting the complaint claiming executive privilege makes no sense. Trump wasn’t on the call, so there’s no executive privilege to invoke. If the focus of the call from the person associated with the foreign intelligence agency and the person close to Trump was the former telling the latter how to advise Trump or the latter telling the former what he or she have been advising Trump, then you don’t have an executive privilege problem. Rather, you’ve got a foreign influence operation running through an insider threat or an insider threat divulging privileged information to a foreign intelligence source.
What it looks like from the outside and with only the very limited information that has been reported so far is that whomever the foreign intelligence aligned person is and the person close to Trump is and whatever it was they discussed was so concerning in regard to Trump that Gabbard and Wiles immediately circled the wagons. Basically, they decided to bury the intel report and cover everything up. While it is part of Wiles’ job to protect the president politically, it is only part of Gabbard’s job to do so in regard to safeguarding him from foreign intelligence threats, which would include influence operations. Based on what we know right now, that doesn’t seem to be what Gabbard was doing.
Wiles, despite her years in politics, has limited experience with intelligence as none of her jobs, until her current one as White House Chief of Staff, required much access even when she’s had clearance.
Finally, it is important to remember that Gabbard is not an intelligence officer, nor has she any experience managing a large organization. She was first an enlisted and then reserve US Army Military Police (MP) in the Hawaii National Guard before jumping over to the US Army Reserve. She briefly switched to a Civil Affairs battalion when she left Congress, before she went back the MPs. So a potential user of intelligence, but not an intelligence officer. During her time in Congress she made an unofficial and not announced until she returned – as in she didn’t tell anyone in either the Democratic caucus’s or the congressional leadership overall – visit to Syria to meet with Bashar al Assad. During that trip she promoted conspiracy theories as to who was to blame for airstrikes against Syrian civilians, which is part of a larger and more troubling set of issues regarding her positions on Russia and Putin. These include blaming Ukraine and the Biden administration for Putin’s genocidal re-invasion of Ukraine, as well as asserting that Putin has no interest in occupying Ukraine, nor invading other European states. She always has been and always will be an insider threat who has no business running an intelligence agency. Had she not been a member of Congress, the US Army National Guard or Reserve would have yanked her access and suspended her clearance pending a full counterintelligence review. Unfortunately, because she was a member of Congress everyone was afraid to make her angry in case she ran for congress again at some point and got reelected or got elected or appointed to a more important and powerful position, which is what has happened as a result of her sucking up to Trump.
Now we have to wait and see what more information is reported out to see what the real issue is beyond what appears to be a cover up of some sort.
Open thread!
Baud
Fake news! There’s no one close to Donald Trump!
.
.
Thanks, Adam.
Eolirin
What if that person taking the call was her?
kindness
My humble opinion? Tulsi is a paid Soviet informant. Then again, so is Trump so…
Baud
Also, too, that whistleblower is a hero.
laura
They were tapping my wires redux. If I recall correctly, the 2016 intelligence issue was that the (appropriate acronym agency) tracking foreign intelligence operatives were on one side of a call and the other side of the call was an operative for the trump campaign. The gang of eight was briefed and we saw photos of an ashen faced senator feinstein et al coming out of the scif briefing room. McConnell then threatened the Obama administration to keep it tight because “election interference” and then after the election trump lost his shit and lied that Obama did in fact interfere with his election and then promptly invited Lavrov and company into the oval office. Thirty some odd Republicans were tried and convicted of various criminal acts and then memory hole.
Is this like that? If so, is this a repeat or a resumption?
bbleh
@Eolirin: my question as well! How do we know she shared ALL the details with Wiles? I’m not willing to go quite as far as @kindness:, but OTOH insofar as we may, fairly IMO, classify Trump as a long-standing “agent of influence” of the Russians, I’d be willing to say Gabbard qualifies as at least that.
Mai Naem mobile
I’m surprised Orange Dbag still had an Inspector General around for any part of the government. I thought he’d fired them all.
Matt McIrvin
@laura:
And, as I recall, this was the first justification Trump used to insist that he somehow deserved a third term in office, Constitution be damned. I guess the idea was that the election was rigged against him even though he won, so it doesn’t count? Or that it means he super-won in a way that was really two wins and means he deserves an extra term to make up for the fact that he could only be one President at a time?
Snarki, child of Loki
It was Trump chatting with Putin about how to ratfuck the US midterm elections. So “executive privilege”.
Now, Trump being such a paragon of INFOSEC, he was speaking in a special code that he was assured by Putin that only Putin could understand.
Pig-latin.
Okay, that might be beyond Trump’s abilities, but I’m sure he TRIED.
Sister Golden Bear
Curiouser and curiouser… Thanks, Adam.
Quaker in a Basement
That depends on just how ‘close to Trump” the person receiving the call is. Like maybe wearing his socks?
bbleh
@Quaker in a Basement: how many times must a WH dignity wraith be called upon for, ah, “Presidential cleanup” before his/her interactions qualify as subject to Executive Privilege?
Elizabelle
Does this have to do with that letter from Senator Ron Wyden too?
ColoradoGuy
The “other person” was Stephen Miller, only too happy to talk to his White-Supremacist Russian counterpart.
Old School
@Quaker in a Basement:
That’s what confuses me. Trump has little loyalty to anyone but himself.
Maybe Don Jr. or Eric?
Professor Bigfoot
@Old School: Or maybe Jared.
Geminid
Speaking of security risks: Ankara-based Clash Report posted a picture of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, somewhere in the Arabian Sea. CENTCOM commander Admiral “Brad” Cooper was with them.
The three American officials met yesterday with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aranghchi in Muscat, the capital of Oman.
bbleh
@Geminid: if I were someone looking to influence Trump, I can offhand think of NOBODY I’d rather meet with than Young Jared. He’s thoroughly corrupt (hello 666 Fifth, also the Greater Gaza
ResettlementRedevelopment effort), thinks he’s far smarter than he is, and the Orange Guy trusts him because Ivanka.Bill Arnold
Is there any public information/hints about the foreign intelligence service involved?
(Russia is obvious, but I have deep anti-Russia grudges (including personal) so am biased.)
@Quaker in a Basement:
A possibly-amusing twist on that; Mr. Trump sometimes uses “we” to refer to Himself. :-)
E.g. just before getting on the airplane to fly to Florida on Jan 20 2021; “So just a goodbye. We love you. We will be back in some form.”
Old School
@Professor Bigfoot: Jared would be protected because of what he knows. Seems unlikely that Trump feels loyalty to him.
Geminid
@bbleh: The problem here is that there are so many likely suspects. You throw a rock into that crowd and they all might holler!
J.
Um, we already know that Trump has been giving away U.S. intelligence to foreign powers for years — and he managed to avoid being thrown out of office and even got reelected. Maybe I’m naive or jaded but does anyone think that proof that Trump or someone in his orbit spoke to a foreign power on the QT or even gave them top secret info would change anything? The Don is Teflon. Sadly.
trollhattan
Tulsi don’t sleuth.
—Joe Strummer, maybe
Isn’t it great to live in a world where the awful people can now find one another?
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Old School: Elon Musk could be a possibility based on the timing. JD Vance would be politically damaging, too.
jonas
If I had to guess, my money’s on Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to Russia in the Ukraine negotiations. Like Trump, Witkoff has longstanding Russian connections via his real estate empire, so I would be completely unsurprised if Russian intelligence is all over him, trying to use him as another way to manipulate Trump.
In a lot of ways, Russia is in a world of shit, but in terms of being able to fuck with American intelligence and basically have a sitting US president, his cabinet, and advisers wrapped around their finger, it’s a golden age.
piratedan
perhaps it comes down to which member of the 47 administration is the most corrupt or the most stupid, or the most ambitious…outside of 47 himself. The problem for me is, it could be any of them. With everything that these people have done, I could empathize with simply putting them all into Trumps new bunker after everything has been disconnected and just filling in the hole and building back a modernized east wing and paying the contractors and never thinking about them ever again.
TS
Someone else may have noted
It’s always the cover up that catches them.
Jay
@Baud:
“Close” does not mean a friend, family or influencer, it’s not meant in the “personal relationship” way,
It’s in reference to being in range of the smell when he shits his diaper.
So, in the room most of the time.
So it could be anybody from his Coke and Mickey D’s butler, to Steven Miller or Susan Wiles.
West of the Rockies
The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.
Craig
@Geminid: why is Jared Kushner there?
Jim Appleton
Se Wyden sent AG Bondi a classified letter putting her on notice that she’ll be questioned next week about an unspecified natsec matter.
If it’s this imbroglio, could he be after a criminal investigation? Whatever the phone conversation, the cover up could be the downfall of …
Jay
Linked?
nitter.poast.org/wartranslated/status/2020093134005539124#m
jackmac
Adam, thanks for taking a crack at this mystery. Perhaps there is another whistleblower who might shed light on what else Tulsi Gabbard has been up to? Something nefarious, no doubt.
Suzanne
I am confused. If it was quashed completely, how did an intelligence officer find out about it? Do a lot of people know about this?
Geminid
@Craig: When this administration began, Jared Kushner seemed to be on the sidelines. That began to change late last summer, when Kushner became involved in efforts to resolve the Gaza War. When Steve Witkoff had a critical meeting with Hamas leaders at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Kushner was with him. I think that was early November.
More recently, Kushner and Witkoff have operated as team, both in negotiations with Russia and the round of talks Friday with the Iranian Foreign Minister in Oman.
I could only speculate as to why. Maybe Witkoff wanted help, or maybe Trump doesn’t quite trust Witkoff. I think in the case of the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting, the Hamas leaders wanted some sort of personal guarantee that Trump would hold up the US’s side of the deal Hamas was being asked to agree to.
Sure Lurkalot
@Geminid: Maybe the Witkoff/Kushner arrangement is just as simple as they are both grifters working for a grifter and all their true goals align.
JetsamPool
Are there any state secrets left in this administration, aside from the state of his health, the Epstein files, and his finances. All a foreign nation has to do is send a big strong oligarch to approach him (with optional tears in his eyes), and say “Sir, Sir! I just bought some of your digital currency (or whatever his latest scam is), and I want [redacted].” And the president would give him [redacted]. The rest of the administration isn’t any better.
bbleh
@JetsamPool: lol the state of his health seems like it’s … ah … leaked already.
But as to big strong oligarchs, I definitely would advise them to say they have their sovereign wealth fund preparing to invest in $TrumpCoin, but it would really help to convince the Third World Leader to proceed if Mister President Sir would [redacted]. Don’t give him something for nothing.
Adam L Silverman
@Suzanne: The intelligence officer was likely involved in preparing the report that got quashed.
Geminid
@Sure Lurkalot: It might be that simple. I’m having a hard time figuring what the goals are, though, with these Iran negotiations. They might be after some comprehensive resolution of several long-standing issues. Or it could be they just wanted to postpone the war until after the Super Bowl, I dunno.
JetsamPool
@bbleh: We can all see the obvious, but his advisors are still insisting he is superhuman. Didn’t he have two doctors at an interview to insist he was the healthiest, most strongest president ever? Can’t remember if the statement was delivered in a robotic monotone.
I’m just hoping his brain deteriorates to the point where he casually admits to some of his crimes while doing one of his rambling monologues.
laura
Hi Adam, I appreciate your post and I hope that you might respond to my query at #5 above.
Jay
@Geminid:
Sawdi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Turkey, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, etc don’t want another war in their neighborhood.
So the US is “negotiating” like they learned from Putin to make it easier to sell the “Blame Iran” card.
suzanne
@Adam L Silverman: Gotcha, that makes sense. Thank you.
Betty
Adam, can you explain the respective roles of the DNI and the NSA? Thanks.
Geminid
@Jay: I’ve read that about the Arab countries and Turkiye, and that’s certainly what they’re saying in public at least.
I just saw some neat pics out of Turkiye, from Clash Report. King Abdullah II of Jordan and his wife were visiting today, and the King presented President Erdogan with some special award. So the King and Queen Rania, and the Erdogan and his wife Emine, posed on the steps of a palace. They were flanked by an honor guard in period dress. Some of them looked like they had just ridden in off the steppes.
Mrs. Erdogan looked pretty sharp in her cat glasses.
Jay
@Betty:
The DNI is the Director of National Intelligence, who has a small Office and Staff, (ODNI), and whom the NSA, CIA, INR, ONI, 16AF, CSS, NRO, DIA, MIC, MCI, NGA, NSIC, OCIC , OIA, IB, NSB, ONSI, CGI and I&A report to.
The NSA, is the National Security Agency and does SIGNIT, (Signals Intelligence).
NetheadJay
Interesting. This might fit with something that’s been circulating. Wonder what caused this to surface now.
Thanks for the writeup, Adam. Very good as usual. Will be passing this on.
Another Scott
Made me look… Wikipedia.org says 47’s big foreign trip in the spring was to the middle east in May – KSA, Qatar, UAE.
CNBC.com (from 2 days ago):
As always with 47 and his minions – Follow the Money.
(Just a guess, of course. I have no inside knowledge of this stuff.)
Thanks Adam.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@laura: Sorry, took an unintended nap. As in I turned on the England V Wales 6 Nations game and fell fast asleep.
I don’t think this is a redux. While ELINT and SIGINT are not my areas of specialty, we do pull in humungous amounts of traffic 24/7/365. I’m sure there are special pull lists for people we know or have reason to believe are associated with foreign intelligence services. That’s how they picked up the 2016 calls between Russian government officials, Russian intelligence, people with access to Putin and people close to the Trump campaign, as well as how Flynn and Jared got in various degrees of trouble during the 2016 transition.
In this case they’ve picked up the call, did a full intel assessment, and produced a report. We don’t know which foreign intelligence service, we don’t know who the person is close to Trump, we don’t know the contents of the call.
Yet.
We may never know depending on what is reported or leaked.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty: The Directorate of National Intelligence was created around the newly created post 9-11 position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI). They took the parts of the Director of Central Intelligence’s (DCI) responsibilities to oversee and coordinate all of the US intelligence agencies and put them in the new DNI position. They then built the new organization around the DNI, which included moving the renamed National Counter-terrorism Center (NCTC) from CIA to DNI.
The National Security Agency (NSA) is the US intelligence agency responsible for electronic and signals intelligence. As tech has improved NSA has moved into the cyber domain, which is why it is colocated with US Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and why the CYBERCOM commander is dual hatted as the NSA director.
Did that help?
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: I’m expecting this to be between an Israeli and Jared or maybe Witkoff. Given the timing. The next option is Dmitriev with either Witkoff or Jared.
I could be wrong, but that’s where I expect this will go.
laura
@Adam L Silverman: Many Thanks to you Adam, I have great respect for your knowledge and analysis.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim Appleton: I don’t expect this to be related to Wyden’s letter to the Director of Central Intelligence. And I expect the letter to Bondi has to do with Gabbard’s involvement in the FBI raid in Atlanta.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Eolirin: I am guessing it was HIM.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@kindness: the intellectual exercise here is determining who in this maladministration is NOT a Kremlin asset.
prostratedragon
@Geminid: For any issue, grift is always my first conjecture with this crew. Not clear that they undertand anything else that is not an assignment.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@J.: the leaks are coming from inside the White House, so to speak.
It is astonishing how much real “American exceptionalism” MAGAts are prepared to sacrifice – lost trade, lost investments, deprioritization of the dollar, abnegation of US treaty obligations, devaluation of US bonds, diminution of US influence in the global space – just to pwn the libs.
Adam L Silverman
@prostratedragon: This is why I’ve documented the extensive Russian investments in both Jared’s and Witkoff’s property development companies.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Geminid: IYAM Kushner, Witkoff, and/or any other civilian real estate professional is completely out of his/her depth in any international conflict negotiations. To them it’s all land, and all land is fungible.
Geminid
@prostratedragon: I get that. I just don’t know how this principle applies to some of these questions, or whether it’s the only principle at work.
In particular, I don’t know for sure whether or not the US will attack Iran. I’ve seen people express certainty that we will, and I’ve seen others who are certain we won’t. All I can tell for sure is that certainty is not that difficult a state mind to attain.
Geminid
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): Sorry, but what does “IYAM” stand for? Can it be spelled out safely?
wjca
@Geminid: I suspect nobody knows at this point whether we will attack Iran or not. It being, AFAICS, a matter of whether one of the ultra-anti-Iran types gets in Trump’s ear at a critical moment with an argument that resonates with him. Which is to say, 100% emotional/bigotry/insecurity based; 0% reality based. Anything like an analysis, or the situation, of the actual threat (if any), or of the consequences? Not only not going to happen, but not even considered.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Geminid: “if you ask me”
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Geminid: If You Ask Me.
planetjanet
@Adam L Silverman:That was a good game to sleep through. Spare the agony.