The National Security Agency is refusing to share classified intelligence connected to a whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, citing executive privilege over portions of the material.

Gabbard's office communicated the decision in a Feb. 13 email to Democratic congressional staffers, according to The Wall Street Journal, describing the withholding as "due to the assertion of executive privilege to portions" of the underlying intelligence.

The complaint, filed last May, is so highly classified that it has not been shared with Congress in full. When Gabbard's office shared the complaint with select lawmakers earlier this month, the report was heavily redacted. According to the Journal, Gabbard has blocked the report's full release.

According to Newsmax, the intelligence at issue reportedly concerns a conversation between two foreign nationals about Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law. A representative with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community described the materials to the Journal as "exceptionally sensitive materials necessitating special handling and storage requirements." One official told the Journal that disclosure could cause "grave damage to national security."

Democrats demand answers

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, both Democrats, sent a letter to Gabbard on Tuesday demanding answers about the report and the legal basis for invoking executive privilege. The lawmakers called the move unprecedented:

"This response and assertion of privilege over this type of intelligence report is unprecedented. The request and provision of intelligence reports have been long-standing practice between the IC and its congressional oversight committees."

They also questioned the legal theory behind the assertion:

"Moreover, it is not clear how this intelligence report could implicate executive privilege, which typically protects the deliberation and communications of the president and his senior advisers."

The letter specifically asked whether President Trump asserted executive privilege over the underlying intelligence report, and if so, when and on what basis.

What this is really about

Strip away the procedural drama, and the picture comes into focus. Democrats who spent four years treating the intelligence community as an unimpeachable oracle when it served their interests are now indignant that a Trump-appointed DNI is exercising authority over intelligence distribution. The same lawmakers who cheered the classification and concealment of materials embarrassing to their own allies suddenly want full transparency, but only when the subject matter involves someone in Trump's orbit.

Warner and Himes frame this as a matter of congressional oversight. That framing deserves scrutiny. Congressional intelligence committees have legitimate oversight functions. But oversight is not the same as entitlement to every piece of raw intelligence on demand, particularly when the intelligence community itself has flagged the material as requiring extraordinary security handling. When an Inspector General representative describes something as necessitating special handling and storage requirements, and an official warns of grave damage to national security from disclosure, perhaps the instinct to keep distribution tight is not obstruction. It is prudent.

The complaint was filed last May. It sat locked in a safe. It was eventually shared in redacted form. At every step, the sensitivity of the underlying material has been the driving concern. Executive privilege may or may not be the right legal mechanism here, and that is a legitimate question for lawyers to sort out. But the Democrats pressing this issue are not motivated by abstract constitutional principles. They smell a political opportunity.

The Kushner angle

The involvement of Jared Kushner's name adds a layer that Democrats will inevitably try to exploit. A conversation between two foreign nationals about the former president's son-in-law is, on its face, the kind of incidental collection that happens constantly in signals intelligence. Foreign officials talk about prominent Americans. That is not evidence of wrongdoing by the American discussed.

But in Washington, the mere proximity of a name to a classified document becomes its own accusation. We saw this playbook during the first Trump administration. Incidental collection, leaked selectively, framed ominously, and repeated until innuendo hardens into narrative. The heavy classification of this material may reflect not a cover-up but a recognition of how easily such intelligence can be weaponized when it reaches people more interested in headlines than national security.

The oversight question

None of this means Congress has no role. Intelligence oversight exists for a reason, and the committees charged with it should eventually receive the information they need to fulfill that function. The question is one of process, timing, and good faith.

Warner and Himes want to frame a deliberate, security-conscious handling process as a constitutional crisis. It isn't. The complaint was filed, reviewed, partially shared, and is now the subject of a legal dispute over privilege. That is the system working, even if it is working slowly and contentiously.

What it is not is a scandal. Not yet. Not based on what is publicly known. The Democrats pushing hardest on this story would do well to remember that the last time they turned classified intelligence disputes into political theater, the country got years of collusion narratives that collapsed under their own weight.

The intelligence community flagged this material as extraordinarily sensitive. Someone in the chain of command decided to treat it that way. Until there is evidence that the classification is pretextual rather than protective, the people demanding the locks be thrown open are the ones who need to explain themselves.