Intelligence I.G. on Hot Seat in Roiling Whistleblower Case
Christopher Fox implicated in ominous allegations of a Tulsi Gabbard coverup
A day after the Senate confirmed Christopher Fox as the intelligence community’s inspector general in October, the most sensitive matter on his agenda was locked in a safe, according to a sensational revelation that surfaced this week. It’s said to be a whistleblower complaint alleging serious wrongdoing by his boss, DNI Tulsi Gabbard.
Filed in May by an unidentified U.S. intelligence employee, the allegations could cause “grave damage” to national security if released, according to U.S. officials cited in an explosive Wall Street Journal article published on Monday. The complaint may involve the White House as well, as well as another federal agency, the article said.
Despite the document’s importance, and for a series of reasons explained only after publication of the piece, it took nearly eight months to reach the eyes of the so-called Gang of Eight, a bipartisan group of top congressional intelligence overseers.
The whistleblower’s lawyer, a former CIA officer named Andrew Bakaj, described the delay in presenting the allegations to congressional overseers as unprecedented. On Friday morning, Bakaj’s organization, Whistleblower Aid, gave Gabbard a deadline of Friday night, “to finally provide security guidance” to his client “to go to the congressional intelligence committees with a highly classified disclosure—or we will offer an unclassified briefing to Congress on Monday.” That put the little known Fox under a spotlight.
A month before being nominated to be the I.G. in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Fox, 38, a highly decorated former Air Force enlisted man and CIA officer, had been working as an aide to Gabbard. His work for her was focused on intelligence oversight, Freedom of Information Act requests and declassification policy. His route there included four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with Air Force special operations. He would later work as a CIA covert action officer.
