Gabbard Whistleblower Complaint Based on Intercepted Conversation About Jared Kushner

Substance of the conversation, which covered in part issues related to Iran, isn’t known

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Dustin Volz

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Josh Dawsey

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C. Ryan Barber

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Updated Feb. 12, 2026 4:21 pm ET

Jared Kushner walking into Mar-a-Lago.

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, arriving at Mar-a-Lago this month. Al Drago/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—The highly classified whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

It couldn’t be determined which country the foreign nationals are from or what they discussed about Kushner. But the connection to Kushner sheds further light on the top-secret whistleblower complaint that bureaucratically stalled within Gabbard’s agency for eight months and was kept locked in a safe until it reached Congress in heavily redacted form last week.

Senior Trump administration officials said the claims about Kushner were demonstrably false, but declined to offer more specifics about the conversation on grounds that doing so could expose a highly sensitive surveillance method.

The allegations in the conversation about Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, would be significant if verified, according to other U.S. officials familiar with its contents. While those officials agreed there was no corroborating evidence to support the allegations, they said that didn’t prove they lacked any merit.

The Wall Street Journal and others reported last week that the complaint was based on a foreign-intelligence conversation collected by the National Security Agency. The conversation included a discussion about a person close to Trump and at least in part concerned issues related to Iran, the Journal reported.

Kushner is at the center of some of the administration’s toughest national security initiatives. He devised the plan to rebuild Gaza and has joined Trump envoy Steve Witkoff in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and dismantle Iran’s nuclear work, including a meeting with Iranian officials last week in Oman.

Like in Trump’s first term, when he orchestrated peace talks between Israel and Arab nations, Kushner touts his business background as an asset in diplomacy, often deriding career government officials as too bureaucratic and slow. He is now running an investment fund, Affinity Partners, which has drawn billion-dollar investments from the Arab monarchies, and has pursued potential projects around the world.

Kushner is serving as a volunteer with the Trump administration and doesn’t have a formal U.S. government role.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaks during a press briefing at the White House.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Kent Nishimura/Reuters

U.S. intelligence officials are treating the material in the complaint with the utmost secrecy, contending that disclosure of the underlying intelligence report at issue could severely damage national security.

A heavily redacted version of the complaint was seen by select lawmakers in Congress last week after the Journal first reported on its existence and that it had stalled within Gabbard’s office. Democrats have questioned why the complaint was held up for eight months and indicated it raises national-security concerns that deserve more investigation. Republicans have defended Gabbard and said the attention on the complaint has been orchestrated to undermine the Trump administration.

The complaint specifically accused Gabbard of limiting the sharing of the intelligence concerning the conversation for political purposes. Shortly after the intelligence was collected last year, Gabbard met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to discuss the matter. The whistleblower complaint alleges that following that meeting, Gabbard worked to limit the sharing of the intelligence, people familiar with the complaint said.

A Gabbard spokeswoman has described those allegations as “baseless and politically motivated,” and said that the claims pertaining to Gabbard were deemed by the former acting inspector general to be not credible.

A second allegation in the complaint alleges that the NSA’s general counsel’s office failed to report a potential crime to the Justice Department that was raised by the content of the intercepted conversation, and did so for political purposes. A career official in that office determined the referral wasn’t necessary because the allegations lacked merit, a senior administration official said.

The intelligence community inspector general didn’t determine whether that allegation against the NSA was credible.

People familiar with the conversation about Kushner said it was hard to assess whether the discussion amounted to little more than unverified gossip or even, potentially, deliberate subterfuge. Foreign spies, diplomats, and other senior government officials have been known to sometimes have conversations with each other in which they deliberately share false or misleading information if they believe an adversarial spy agency could be eavesdropping.

The intelligence community inspector general, Christopher Fox, provided the complaint to the so-called Gang of Eight in person in a secure room in Congress last week on a “read-and-return” basis, meaning lawmakers weren’t able to take any files with them or take notes.

Following review of the complaint, Sen. Tom Cotton, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it wasn’t credible and handled appropriately by Gabbard.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, countered Sunday that he couldn’t judge the veracity or credibility of the complaint in part because the version shared with Congress was so heavily redacted.

“The complaint is so redacted, it’s hard to get to the bottom of it,” Warner said, adding that he was pressing to obtain the unredacted version as well as the underlying intelligence intercepts at issue.

In a letter Wednesday to Gabbard’s office, the whistleblower’s attorney, Andrew Bakaj, reiterated a request to share the full complaint and underlying intelligence with Congress.

Gabbard, he wrote, “is deliberately obstructing our client’s ability to directly communicate with the congressional intelligence committees and provide a briefing of the contents of their whistleblower complaint.”

A Gabbard spokeswoman said her actions have been “fully within her legal and statutory authority.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5834330&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310481#49667626)

https://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5832277&mc=7&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5834330&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310481#49667679)

he accepted the ultra-corrupt Jared from the ultra-corrupt Kushner family as his handler during both his Presidencies.

The USA is such a fraudulent entity.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5834330&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310481#49667747)