It's been eight months since an intelligence official came forward with serious allegations against Tulsi Gabbard. That seems like a very long time to sit on something that reportedly represents a "grave threat" to the nation.

But that report has literally been locked away where no one can see it. Because Trump needs Gabbard. She’s heading the operation to discredit the midterm elections.

Finding the most terrible, noxious, execrable official in the Donald Trump White House is a difficult challenge. Is it the guy who took a $50,000 bribe. from FBI agents, or the one who is systematically destroying public health? What about the woman who can always find a justification for murder, whether it's puppies or people? Or maybe ... Okay, it's Stephen Miller. We all know it's Stephen Miller.

But when it comes to sheer insane-in-the-membrane loopiness, there's one Trump cabinet member who can beat even the guy with the brainworm. Or the worm. Because America's Director of National Intelligence (and it still seems incredible to say this even after a year) is Tulsi Gabbard.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Gabbard has done something so irretrievably bad that, even compared to the other outrages of this administration, it seems … really bad.

A U.S. intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in a whistleblower complaint that is so highly classified it has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.

What is the whistleblower alleging? We don't know. However, we do know that it supposedly:

• Represents a "grave threat to national security"
• Implicates at least one other department in the administration
• Involves claims of executive privilege

Considering Gabbard's personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, her willingness to spread Kremlin propaganda, and her dismissal of Russia experts at the CIA, it's not hard to guess that this might have something to do with Moscow. The executive privilege aspect lets us guess that it directly involves Trump.

But we shouldn't have to guess. It's been eight months since this intelligence official came forward with serious allegations of wrongdoing.

Eight months. And still, no one in Congress has been briefed, and no hearings have been held. That seems like a very long time to sit on something that represents a "grave threat" to the nation.

Who is responsible for this intolerable delay? That's also Gabbard. Rather than send the allegations onward, as the whistleblower law requires, she's taken a somewhat different action. That includes unilaterally deciding that no one in Congress has the necessary security to look at the charges against her. And she has taken another action that's even less subtle.

A cloak-and-dagger mystery reminiscent of a John le Carré novel is swirling around the complaint, which is said to be locked in a safe. Disclosure of its contents could cause “grave damage to national security,” one official said.

Emphasis added. Emphatically.

Aides to Gabbard are complaining about the WSJ article, saying that the whistleblower was "politically motivated" and had "weaponized their position" at the agency. Which sounds like exactly the sort of thing that Congress is supposed to evaluate when a whistleblower report is delivered. As required. By the law.

Also, since the purpose of the Whistleblower Protection Act is to ensure that those who want to bring a serious matter to the attention of Congress can do so without being persecuted for speaking up, it seems more than a little off for Gabbard's aides to be attacking the whistleblower before anyone has even seen the information.

However, this isn't the only WTF Tulsi Gabbard? issue in the news this week. There's also Gabbard's appearance at the FBI seizure of ballots in Fulton County, Georgia.

Trump on Thursday night praised Gabbard for “working very hard to try to keep the election safe” when asked by CNN why she was present during the search. “You’ll see some interesting things happening,” Trump said. “They’ve been trying to get there for a long time.”

The New York Times reports that Gabbard met with FBI agents again following the raid on the election office.

They could not say why Ms. Gabbard, who also appeared on site at the search, was there, but her continued presence has raised eyebrows given that her role overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies does not include on-site involvement in criminal investigative work.

Gabbard then called Trump from the meeting, and he also talked directly with FBI agents. All of this is counter to claims by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who told reporters over the weekend that Trump had no involvement in the search.

If there's anyone Trump can count on to spin fantasies about problems with ballots that have already been examined repeatedly, it's Gabbard. In addition to being "historically unfit" to serve as DNI, she made her MAGA bones popping in at Fox News to shore up the wildest claims about the 2020 election. In fact, Gabbard was also there in 2016, making some of the same claims then that she would repeat in the following cycle.

Her involvement as Director of National Security in an election issue may be unprecedented, but as far as Trump is concerned, the most pressing issue in national security is bolstering his debunked claims about a vote that took place six years ago. And that's exactly what he's getting from Gabbard.

Gabbard has been “less visible” than colleagues on big foreign policy issues like Venezuela and Iran, said Jeet Heer at The Nation. But she has “made herself useful” to Trump as the administration’s “driving force” to vindicate his 2020 conspiracy theories.

Gabbard isn't performing the legal role of a DNI in terms of evaluating intelligence and coordinating a response to threats. Instead, she's leading Trump's efforts to exhume every false claim he's made over the last six years and create a unified narrative of election vulnerability.

Many are measured and sensible, but others seem like the stuff of authoritarian regimes: giving the president the power to take over domestic communications, seize Americans’ bank accounts, and deploy U.S. troops to any foreign country.

Trump may not be able to stop the elections, but he can declare a national emergency and station masked stormtroopers outside critical polling stations. He can make every effort to undermine the nation's faith in the election, to make voting seem both pointless and dangerous, and declare that the system of state-run elections is corrupt. The Georgia search and Gabbard’s involvement is happening at the same time that Trump is calling on Republicans to “nationalize elections” and take control away from states.

Uncovering "evidence" to support his false claims about the 2020 election, backed by Gabbard and trumpeted by congressional clowns like the ever-willing Rep. James Comer (R-KY), would provide an excellent smokescreen for Trump's next attempted coup.

Which is why that safe containing the whistleblower's warning isn't likely to open any time soon.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos