The FBI has opened a case over a possible leak of classified information, which preliminary findings suggest came from Democratic staffers on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The probe was prompted by a referral from the NSA, which flagged the disclosure of an intercepted communication originating abroad.
As it has emerged, the NSA had already sent over a formal request last summer. The trigger was a set of articles published that same year during the confirmation process for Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Those pieces quoted an intercepted conversation between two Hezbollah militants, who claimed that Gabbard had met with the “big boss” during her 2017 trip to Syria.
Some experts saw in this evidence of Gabbard having made contact with a senior leader of the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Gabbard herself flatly denied the claim.
Having carried out an analysis, the NSA determined that the leak did contain accurate information from the intercepted communication, but confirmed that Gabbard had not met with the group’s leaders. According to sources, the agency has since narrowed down potential leakers among personnel from the Democratic faction on the Intelligence Committee who had access to the intercepted message before it was published.
That referral then sat with the Justice Department for several months without any action being taken. The department’s top leadership was not briefed on the concerns until a few weeks ago, when FBI Director Kash Patel came across the document. Since then, sources say, FBI counterintelligence and criminal agents have stepped up the investigation and broadened its scope to bring in other possible leaks and media contacts tied to Committee Democrats.