Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appears to be hitting a nerve — and judging by the reaction, it’s a very sensitive one. After showing up at the operation securing the Fulton County, Georgia, Election Hub and Operation Center, she suddenly became the target of a thinly sourced and conveniently timed “leak” to The Wall Street Journal. Funny how that works. When you start asking questions about elections, the smear machine magically turns on.
The Journal ran an “exclusive” claiming wrongdoing by Gabbard based on a whistleblower complaint so classified it took months to argue over how to share it with Congress. The article suggested she was stonewalling. Her office rejected that claim, saying it was dealing with unique circumstances and working through them properly.
But buried thirteen paragraphs into the story was the key detail: after Gabbard answered written questions from the inspector general’s office, the acting inspector general at the time determined the allegations about her were not credible. That part, oddly enough, didn’t make the headline.
As it turns out, there was no delay in producing guidance on how to handle the complaint. The whistleblower’s report is now with the congressional intelligence committees, and Gabbard provided documentation showing she followed procedure.
What followed was a coordinated campaign across some of the country’s biggest media outlets aimed at discrediting her — a strategy that looks eerily familiar. It closely resembles how President Trump was boxed in during his first term, when anonymous intelligence community leaks fueled months of hysteria over a Ukraine phone call.
Back in August 2019, an anonymous whistleblower filed a complaint accusing Trump of abusing his office by asking Ukraine’s president for information on the Bidens and their dealings with Burisma. By mid-September, media outlets were filled with leaks and interpretations of leaks, until rumor became “fact” and “fact” became impeachment. The result wasn’t justice — it was paralysis. U.S. diplomacy was frozen while Joe Biden was quietly prepared as the Democrat nominee.
Now, the same playbook seems to be aimed at Tulsi Gabbard. While the current accusations are not enough to force her out, they reveal the long game: discredit the investigator before the investigation gets uncomfortable.
There is evidence tied to Fulton County and other jurisdictions where large numbers of Biden ballots appeared after polls closed. The problem for those involved is how to keep that evidence from ever facing public scrutiny. And the sheer desperation to derail any inquiry into election integrity suggests something very serious happened.
If elections are corrupt, then every action of government is called into question, and the bond between “We the People” and the Constitution is broken. That is not a small issue — that is the foundation of the Republic. It is also not hard to imagine hostile foreign actors and domestic elites playing a role in something of that scale.
The fact that Gabbard was on the ground as the FBI served a search warrant points to more than paperwork mistakes — it points to a serious intelligence and criminal matter. And the furious reaction to her involvement signals this story is far from over.
The more aggressively they try to silence her, the clearer it becomes that she is looking in the right place. And that’s the best news of all: sunlight is coming, and the truth has a way of surviving even the loudest smear campaigns.
