On April 15, 2026, a new chapter unfolded in the ongoing saga surrounding former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sent criminal referrals to the Department of Justice targeting two central figures: the whistleblower whose complaint triggered the 2019 inquiry and Michael Atkinson, the former Intelligence Community Inspector General. The move, confirmed by a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), has reignited fierce debate over the handling of the impeachment and the conduct of U.S. intelligence officials.
According to Fox News Digital, the referrals allege “possible criminal activity” by former intelligence community employees, specifically referencing Atkinson’s discussions and briefings with the House Intelligence Committee in 2019. The documents, reviewed and released by Gabbard earlier in the week, include transcripts of Atkinson’s closed-door testimony—records that had been withheld from certain House lawmakers during the original impeachment proceedings.
Gabbard’s accusations are sweeping. In a statement accompanying the document release, she claimed, “Deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that was used by Congress to usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected President of the United States.” She further asserted that Atkinson “failed to uphold his responsibility to the American people, putting political motivations over the truth,” and accused a former CIA employee (the whistleblower) of politicizing the process in concert with Democrats in Congress. “Exposing these tactics and showing how they undermine the fabric of our democratic republic furthers the critical cause of transparency and accountability and will help prevent future abuse of power,” Gabbard added, as reported by The New York Post.
The whistleblower’s original complaint, filed in August 2019, centered on a July phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In the call, Trump pressed Zelenskyy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine—a request that, according to Democrats, amounted to leveraging U.S. military aid for personal political gain. The whistleblower wrote, “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. This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals.”
The complaint also flagged concerns about the handling of records related to the call and the involvement of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in U.S.-Ukraine relations. The White House later released a declassified version of the complaint, which acknowledged that the whistleblower was “not a direct witness to most of the events described,” but found colleagues’ accounts “credible” due to consistency across multiple officials’ reports.
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 2019, accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate, however, acquitted him in February 2020, with votes falling largely along party lines. Throughout, Trump insisted he had done nothing wrong, repeatedly describing his call with Zelenskyy as “perfect.”
The newly released documents, according to CNN, include not only Atkinson’s testimony but also notes from interviews with the whistleblower. Gabbard contends these records show Atkinson ignored evidence of political bias on the part of the whistleblower, who allegedly favored a rival political candidate. Despite this, Atkinson deemed the complaint an “urgent concern” and forwarded it to Congress. ODNI now claims Atkinson “failed to conduct basic due diligence and willfully exceeded his statutory jurisdiction to mischaracterize the president’s phone call with Zelensky as an ‘urgent concern’ to Congress.”
Notably, the documents do not, at least as of now, provide direct evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Gabbard herself acknowledged on News Nation that she was leaving it to Justice Department lawyers to determine “the specific legal parameters,” stating, “It was important for us to refer this along with all of the information that we have, so that the Department of Justice can do exactly that and investigate it.”
Michael Atkinson, who served as Inspector General from 2018 to 2020, was fired by Trump in April 2020. In a statement after his removal, Atkinson maintained, “I faithfully discharged my duties as inspector general and spent my nearly two-decade career serving without regard to partisan favor or political fear.” Atkinson and the Department of Justice have not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the new referrals.
Reactions to Gabbard’s move have been sharply divided along familiar political lines. Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was quick to denounce the referral, warning that it would “chill future whistleblowers from coming forward to Congress with confidence that the law will protect them.” Himes added, “This apparent criminal referral will amount to nothing because no misconduct occurred, but what it will do is chill future whistleblowers from coming forward to Congress with confidence that the law will protect them. I suspect that is precisely the point.”
Republicans, on the other hand, have long argued that the impeachment inquiry was tainted by political bias and improper contact between the whistleblower and Democratic lawmakers. Back in 2019 and 2020, House Republicans sought to refer Atkinson and the whistleblower to the DOJ for investigation, raising concerns about the whistleblower’s advance contact with the staff of then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. Schiff, for his part, downplayed the nature of that contact.
This latest development is part of a broader pattern under Gabbard’s tenure as Director of National Intelligence. In recent months, she and others in her orbit have revisited political battles from Trump’s first term, including the intelligence community’s review of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Gabbard and former CIA Director John Ratcliffe have released documents challenging the 2017 intelligence assessment that concluded Russia interfered to aid Trump, and have made criminal referrals targeting figures like former CIA Director John Brennan. Despite these efforts, no charges have resulted from previous referrals.
Meanwhile, Gabbard herself has faced scrutiny. The current intelligence community inspector general notified Congress of a whistleblower complaint alleging that a highly classified intelligence report had been “restricted for political purposes.” Gabbard has denied those claims.
As the Justice Department weighs whether to pursue an investigation, the episode underscores the enduring polarization around the events of 2019 and the broader question of how intelligence and whistleblower processes should function in a charged political environment. The stakes are high—not only for those directly involved, but for the future of transparency, accountability, and the willingness of government officials to come forward with concerns. How the DOJ responds will reverberate well beyond Washington’s corridors of power.