Tulsi Gabbard Is Hunting for “Deep-State Criminals.” Is She Even Following the Law?

Spy chief Tulsi Gabbard is on the hunt for deep state leakers prompted at least in part by damaging reporting that undermined the White House s episode for an immigration crackdown Her leak examination however may already be running afoul of the law a Senate Intelligence Committee member stated this week Gabbard failed to notify Congress about her search for leakers despite a law requiring her to do so for substantial disclosures Sen Angus King I-Maine mentioned at a Wednesday hearing King who caucuses with the Democrats declared he thought there was no question the law had been triggered If it was crucial enough to tweet it it would seem to me it was crucial enough to notify this committee King declared If it was essential enough to tweet it it would seem to me it was critical enough to notify this committee King s comments underscored how Gabbard the director of national intelligence has managed to alienate committee Democrats at the same time as she has drawn residents criticism from President Donald Trump Under the disclosure law Gabbard is also supposed to provide the committee with an initial damage assessment of substantial leaks laying out what kind of harm they have supposedly caused the authorities She also has yet to do that King stated The law does appear to allow Gabbard s office specific wiggle room It is only triggered by essential leaks making the formal disclosure something of a judgment call The agency has discussed the leaks with committee staff an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence explained The Intercept If the law hasn t been triggered however that would undermine the event for a leak probe that Gabbard broadcasted in dramatic terms according to Lauren Harper the Daniel Ellsberg chair on governing body secrecy at the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation Related How a Landlord and a Florida PR Firm Helped Trump Kick Off the Tren de Aragua Gang Panic Following the leak the Freedom of the Press Foundation received a declassified version of the document in question distributed by Gabbard under the Freedom of Information Act The document undermined a administration talking point about the threat from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua which has been used to justify Trump s immigration crackdown Congress should know about investigations if leaks indeed damage national assurance Harper disclosed in an email but the fact that ODNI hasn t provided a damage assessment for this leak helps prove our point that the leak and the official FOIA release didn t damage national safeguard at all It informed the citizens about one of the administration s the majority pernicious lies to-date Venezuelan Threat Weeks after Attorney General Pam Bondi scrapped protections for journalists ensnared in Justice Department leak investigations King s revelation also raises fresh questions about how Trump s administration is handling such probes Gabbard has not described the full scope of the leak investigations but they are connected at least in part to one of the majority of damaging revelations from inside the intelligence society this year Related Pete Hegseth Is Mad the Media Won t Celebrate U S War With Iran Trump has justified mass deportation by claiming that the Tren de Aragua is engaged not just in drug trafficking but also an invasion of the U S under the direction of Venezuelan President Nicol s Maduro s executive In mid-April however the Washington Post revealed on a consensus assessment of the nation s spy agencies that Tren de Aragua was not acting under official direction and had at the greater part low-level contacts with the Maduro regime The assessment was produced by the National Intelligence Council which reports to Gabbard The newspaper cited people familiar with the matter as its sources prompting Gabbard to blast the disclosure as the work of deep state actors Although Gabbard assailed the leaks her office in May declassified the assessment and distributed it to the Freedom of the Press Foundation under a Freedom of Information Act request The document proved that the leakers had correctly described the assessment Although Gabbard declared the leak probe with a splash she appears never to have followed through Gabbard didn t stop at badmouthing the leakers however Later in April she released on X that she had referred a leak probe to the Justice Department Her chief of staff disclosed in a since-deleted post that the research included the Tren de Aragua assessment In her post about the referrals Gabbard painted the promising damage from leaks in dramatic terms saying that they could put our nation s prevention at liability These deep-state criminals leaked classified information for partisan political purposes to undermine POTUS agenda she declared Although Gabbard communicated the leak probe with a splash she appears never to have followed through with the next step required in serious cases Under the law the director of national intelligence has seven days to inform the House and Senate Intelligence committees about a crucial leak of classified information Such a notification has never been sent King stated Wednesday The office of the committee s ranking Democrat Virginia Sen Mark Warner approved that it has not received one either Criticism Across the Board King s inhabitants comments come as Gabbard faces scrutiny from Trump on down and as a top Republican mounts a push to slash her agency s size Trump noted hours before he launched strikes on Iran that Gabbard was wrong about intelligence showing that the country s leaders had not decided to build a nuclear weapon Earlier this month Democrats including Warner assailed Gabbard s decision to place a staffer of hers inside the nominally independent inspector general for the intelligence society which is supposed to protect whistleblowers and call out fraud at spy agencies Gabbard also fired the inspector general s top lawyer Gabbard s office has defended her actions as a response to the politicization of the inspector general s office Gabbard who has embraced calls for streamlining the ODNI is also staring at a potentially massive downsizing of her agency On Friday Intelligence Committee Chair Sen Tom Cotton R-Ark circulated a draft of a bill that would dramatically downsize the agency s staff and responsibilities Cotton s bill does not appear to be a direct response to Gabbard s tenure since he stated his desire to trim what he calls a bureaucratic behemoth before her confirmation The post Tulsi Gabbard Is Hunting for Deep-State Criminals Is She Even Following the Law appeared first on The Intercept