U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testifies to a House Select Intelligence Committee hearing on March 19, 2026 in Washington, DC. The hearing was held to assess worldwide threats in 2026. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department for the whistleblower whose complaint helped trigger President Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment and for the former intelligence community inspector general who notified Congress of the allegations, Fox News Digital has learned.
“I want to refer information that may constitute possible criminal activity in violation of federal criminal law committed by one or more former employees of the intelligence community,” ODNI’s general counsel wrote in the referral to the Justice Department.
Fox News Digital on Wednesday reviewed the referrals ODNI sent to the Justice Department.
“The possible criminal activity concerns the circumstances described in the following congressional briefings: Discussion with Intelligence Community Inspector General, House Permanent Select Comm. on Intel., 116th Cong. (2019); Briefing by the Intelligence Community Inspector General, House Permanent Select Comm. on Intel., 116th Cong. (2019),” it continued.
GABBARD CLAIMS ‘COORDINATED EFFORT’ BY INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY TO ADVANCE NARRATIVE TO IMPEACH TRUMP
The referrals come after DNI Tulsi Gabbard released documents earlier this week exposing what was described as a “coordinated effort” by elements within the intelligence community—including then-Inspector General Michael Atkinson, to “manufacture a conspiracy” that was used as the basis to impeach Trump in 2019.
WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 04: Michael Atkinson, Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, leaves a meeting in the U.S. Capitol October 4, 2019 in Washington, DC. Atkinson met with the House Select Committee on Intelligence today in the ongoing
An intelligence official told Fox News Digital that the language in the referral is broad, but that it’s specifically directed at Atkinson and the whistleblower who reported concerns about President Trump’s July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
FLASHBACK: NUNES THREATENS TO REFER WATCHDOG’S HANDLING OF WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT TO DOJ
ODNI directed Fox News Digital to a recent X post from Gabbard when asked for comment on the referrals.
“Newly-declassified records expose how deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that Congress used to usurp the will of the American people and impeach duly-elected President @realDonaldTrump in 2019,” Gabbard posted to X on Monday.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Justice on Wednesday afternoon regarding the referrals.
The documents Gabbard released earlier this week include transcripts from Atkinson’s closed-door testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which were withheld from the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment trial. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, R-Ark., led a vote to release the transcripts in March.
ODNI said the documents confirmed that 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.”
Atkinson, during his investigation, found that the whistleblower showed indications of “political bias” and was “in favor of a rival political candidate,” while still deeming the complaint a matter of “urgent concern.”
Atkinson received a complaint in August 2019 from the whistleblower, who was raising concerns about Trump’s July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pressing him to launch investigations into the Biden family’s actions and business dealings in Ukraine. The president specifically suggested Zelensky look into Hunter Biden’s ventures with Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings and former President Joe Biden’s successful effort to have former Ukrainian prosecutor General Viktor Shokin ousted.
Hunter Biden was quietly under federal investigation, beginning in 2018, at the time of the call, a probe prompted by suspicious foreign transactions.
Trump’s request was regarded by Democrats as a quid pro quo because millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Ukraine had been frozen. Democrats also said Trump was meddling in the 2020 presidential election by asking a foreign leader to look into a Democrat political opponent.
Biden has acknowledged that when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings and Hunter had a highly lucrative role on the board, receiving thousands of dollars per month. The then-vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.
“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ … I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Biden recollected the conversation during an event for the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.
FLASHBACK: HOUSE INTEL REPUBLICANS INVESTIGATING ICIG HANDLING OF WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT
“Well, son of a b—-, he got fired,” Biden said during the event. “And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
Biden allies maintain the then-vice president pushed for Shokin’s firing due to concerns the Ukrainian prosecutor went easy on corruption, and they say that his firing, at the time, was the policy position of the U.S. and international community.
Meanwhile, House Republicans, back in 2019 and 2020, sought to refer Atkinson and the whistleblower to the DOJ for investigation.
Republicans, at the time, complained that the whistleblower made contact with the staff of then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in advance — though Schiff downplayed the nature of that contact.
The White House, under Trump’s first term, released a declassified version of the whistleblower complaint, which revealed that the whistleblower’s concerns stemmed from the secondhand accounts of “more than half a dozen U.S. officials.”
The declassified whistleblower complaint, though, stated: “I was not a direct witness to most of the events described. However, I found my colleagues’ accounts of these events to be credible, because, in almost all cases, multiple officials recounted fact patterns that were consistent with one another.”
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Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives in December 2019. He was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on the matter Wednesday.
