Trump crony commits 'indefensible abuse' to save their job: analysis

President Donald Trump uses a gavel after signing the sweeping spending and tax legislation at the White House in Washington, D.C., July 4, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis

One of President Donald Trump's top cabinet officials has engaged in what a new analysis from MS NOW dubbed an "indefensible abuse," and all in the name of saving her job by impressing an "audience of one."

Steve Benen is a longtime MS NOW contributor and producer for host Rachel Maddow. On Thursday, he published a new piece lambasting the latest move from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, sending a criminal referral to the Justice Department for a whistleblower who submitted a complaint in 2019 that later led to the first impeachment of Trump for attempting to extort Ukraine for political gain.

This follows Gabbard's previous assertion that the impeachment proceedings were the result of "deep-state actors within the Intelligence Community” who secretly conspired to “usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected president of the United States."

As Benen highlighted, this referral has already been met with outrage by some in Washington, D.C., including Rep. Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat and the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, who called it a "smear" meant to chill future whistleblowers from speaking out.

“The whistleblower who made Congress aware of Donald Trump’s efforts to extort Ukraine and falsely smear his opponent followed all the rules and demonstrated courage and principle," Himes said in a statement. "No amount of sycophantic lickspittle will erase the fact that the ‘perfect’ call was released, and the American people could see Trump’s corruption and abuse of power firsthand.”

Benen compared the referral to a similarly "ludicrous" report she released last summer, alleging that former President Barack Obama had attempted to subvert Trump's victory in 2016, claiming to have found proof of a "treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government." In reality, reports later dismissed the report as "a nothingburger" with "no actual substance."

"As was the case last summer, her presentation (to the extent that one could credibly call it that) failed entirely to make a compelling case, which helped explain why the DNI’s allegations went largely ignored," Benen explained. "But by all appearances, the point wasn’t about exposing actual wrongdoing. Rather, Gabbard — no doubt aware of scuttlebutt about her possible about her possible firing after 14 months of failures, controversies and embarrassments — was likely trying to impress her audience of one. There’s reason to believe it worked."

Based on several Wednesday posts to Truth Social, Trump appears to have been impressed with Gabbard's shoddy claims, using them to further his insistence that his first impeachment ought to be expunged.

"Gabbard is engaging in such pitiful antics because her job likely depends on it," Benen concluded. "As for whether similarly situated loyalists at Main Justice are prepared to maintain the charade, watch this space."

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