Some news stories are an IQ test. That was my initial reaction to a recent report claiming DNI Tulsi Gabbard was covering up a damning "whistleblower" complaint involving foreign intelligence and the Trump White House. As usual, almost the entirety of the left and their allies in the mainstream press didn't manage to break 70.
To start, let's take a look at the original claim, as published by The Guardian on Saturday. Here was the wording before the paper amended it for "clarity," which we'll get to.
Last spring, the National Security Agency (NSA) flagged an unusual phone call between an individual associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower’s attorney who was briefed on details of the call.
Naturally, that set the left-wing media's hair on fire. A foreign intelligence asset had a phone call with a person close to Trump? Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! It was Russian collusion redux for them, and equally as exciting. They had finally found their next bit of impeachment bait.
Of course, even the story pre-amendment still had way too many holes to take seriously. What country was this "individual associated with foreign intelligence" from? For example, if a British intelligence officer speaks to the White House, that wouldn't be a scandal. The lack of detail was the point, though. This "whistleblower" complaint and the Democrats promoting it wanted people to assume it's Russia, China, or some other American adversary.
As to the other aspect of the story, which accused Gabbard of covering up the complaint for almost a year, the DNI quickly stepped in to counter that, saying she had only seen it two weeks prior because it was being held by Biden-era Inspector General Tamara Johnson.
SEE: Tulsi Gabbard Fires Back at Mark Warner, Says Senator's 'Whistleblower' Tale Is a Lie
If this "scandal" stopped there, it'd already be a dud. It didn't stop there, though. Notably, Gabbard's office tried to warn The Guardian that they were being misled by the "whistleblower" and that their story and headline were not accurate.
Your story is false. This headline is not accurate.
— Alexa Henning (@alexahenning) February 7, 2026
Your leaker lied to you. And you ignored our requests to give us time to get you accurate information and published your story before we could respond.
You are a total loser being used by your sources (likely Congress) to… https://t.co/kWyVWXR2yJ
Sure enough, The Guardian has now put out a "clarification" that isn't a clarification at all. Instead, it's an outright correction that completely nukes their story.
Whistleblower attorney @AndrewBakaj revised his previous statement to the Guardian, saying that "The NSA picked up a phone call between two members of foreign intelligence involving someone close to the Trump White House."
— Cate Brown (@catebrown12) February 8, 2026
Updated for clarity -->https://t.co/BxXkQJofBd
This story was amended on 7 February 2026 to clarify that the phone call was between two people associated with foreign intelligence who discussed someone close to Donald Trump, not between someone and a person close to Trump. The earlier version was based on multiple phone calls with a source who later said he misspoke and clarified the actual details of the call.
So we went from "flagged an unusual phone call between an individual associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Donald Trump," which was meant to suggest someone in the White House was directly coordinating with an adversary, to a phone call "between two people associated with foreign intelligence who discussed someone close to Donald Trump."
There's not even the husk of an actual newsworthy report left after that correction. Even if we take this latest revision as fact, and there's no reason to give that benefit of the doubt, we are left with people associated with foreign intelligence talking about the U.S. administration. Stop the presses!
I'd say this is embarrassing for The Guardian, but that would assume they and other left-wing outlets have any capacity to feel embarrassment at this point. And to be honest, I'm not sure they do.
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