Gabbard sends criminal referrals to DOJ for whistleblower and watchdog who helped launch Trump's first impeachment
Source: CBS News
April 15, 2026 / 10:41 PM EDT
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard asked the Justice Department to investigate two former government officials who played a central role in President Trump's first impeachment inquiry. A spokesperson for Gabbard's office confirmed that she drafted criminal referrals for a whistleblower and a former intelligence community watchdog, but did not detail what specific crimes are alleged.
Whether to pursue a criminal investigation following a referral is up to prosecutors at the Justice Department. The referrals came after Gabbard criticized how former Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson handled the 2019 whistleblower complaint earlier this week, releasing a trove of documents linked to Atkinson.
The whistleblower whose identity has not been formally disclosed reported an "urgent concern" about President Trump's request for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. The complaint also expressed concerns about how records of a Trump-Zelenskyy phone call were handled, and about the role of Mr. Trump's then-personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in the U.S.'s relationship with Ukraine.
"I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election," the whistleblower wrote. "This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President's main domestic political rivals." Mr. Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives in late 2019, but was acquitted in a Senate vote mostly along party lines in early 2020. He has long denied any wrongdoing, referring to his phone call with Zelenskyy as "perfect."
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gabbard-criminal-referrals-doj-whistleblower-watchdog-trump-first-impeachment/
Lovie777
(23,184 posts)The Wizard
(13,782 posts)a suspected Russian operative do the bidding for a convicted felon with an approval that falls between herpes and anal leakage?
Botany
(77,519 posts)She is on Putins payroll and undoubtedly there is kompramat on her.
SergeStorms
(20,672 posts)Watch Hysteria's "This #×cking Guy" exposè about the wonderful Tulsi Gabbard for a hair-raising look into that chameleon's history.
Apparently no one in TrumpCo. vetted this snake before they chose her for the national intelligence position.
Botany
(77,519 posts)The crime according to Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard wasnt Donald Trump withholding
military assistance from Ukraine unless President Zelenskyy invented dirt on Joe Biden
but the reporting of Trumps attempted extortion.
Trump should be in the U.S. Super Maximum Federal Prison in Colorado right now. The
extent to which the Republican Party, the super rich, our Christo Fascist Christians, the
Republican owned media, the fossil fuel industries, and Trumps associates have gone to
and continue to go to in order to normalize and cover up his crimes is 100% unAmerican.
Festivito
(13,899 posts)His base believes the story is fake. Their proof is that there is investigation, charges, trial, extended trial, followed by a far off, distant news blurb between a story of a dog riding a bicycle and a man with his head caught in a sink.
Ohh yeah, he was found not guilty as reported by the shaking head news station.
Botany
(77,519 posts)his attempt to extort Zelenskyy into inventing dirt on Biden. Part of his
phone call to was released on a
transcript and he told Zelenskyy to just
say something about Biden and his people
would make the rest up. Trump and the Republicans were able to block the release
of the full transcript and a recording of the
call. The Senate Republicans knowing full
well that Trump was guilty because Adam
Schiff put out an air tight case still voted not to convict Trump. They are traitors to
their sworn oath to protect America and the Constitution.
Btw one of the very best men I have ever
known in my life was PA's Republican governor Ray Schafer.. as a kid he was our
neighbor's brother. His kind is long gone.
Ray Bruns
(6,481 posts)Isnt it obvious. They are guilty of pissing off Donald Trump.
Vinca
(54,121 posts)riversedge
(81,062 posts)....... Atkinson spent 15 years at the Justice Department before serving as inspector general of the intelligence community from 2018 to 2020. Atkinsons reputation as a straight shooter prompted some lawmakers who were otherwise skeptical of the whistleblower complaint to take the document seriously, CNN previously reported.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/15/politics/tulsi-gabbard-office-criminal-referral-trump-impeachment
Trump fired Atkinson in April 2020, raising concerns that the president was meddling in the work of what are supposed to be independent watchdogs.
dem4decades
(14,166 posts)AverageOldGuy
(3,980 posts). . . who promises to build a big gallows on the National Mall . . . and appoint an Atty Gen who will use it.
AllyCat
(18,895 posts)Rethink my position
Talitha
(8,069 posts)Framed by Dump's proposed Arch.
dem4decades
(14,166 posts)AllyCat
(18,895 posts)Protected! This is the worst government ever.
Playingmantis
(671 posts)Can we survive this? Will elections be fair ever again?
Will Trump arrest all his political opponents?
Will the GOP approve?
Will he get two more Supreme Court Justices?
Things we never dreamed we would ask