WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s office warned an attorney for a whistleblower Monday that he could not brief members of Congress on his client’s claims without risking the disclosure of classified information.

ODNI general counsel Jack Dever told Andrew Bakaj that he had no legal authority to bring further information about the complaint — which is so highly classified it’s being kept in a safe — against Gabbard to members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

“The highly classified nature of the underlying complaint increases the risk that you or your client inadvertently or otherwise breaks the law by divulging or mishandling classified information,” wrote Dever, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Post.

“You may have other means of appearing in front of Congress, but this is not it.”

Bakaj was also accused in the ODNI general counsel’s letter of asserting whistleblower protections that do not extend to his client.

Not much is known about the complaint, which appears to involve details from an intercepted call between foreign nationals.

The call concerned a person in President Trump’s orbit, CBS News reported Sunday.

Two separate intelligence watchdogs found the allegations in the complaint to be not credible, according to Dever.

Acting Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Tamara Johnson’s office first received the complaint this past May.

On June 9, Johnson found one of two allegations in the complaint not credible — having been unable to assess the credibility of the second claim.

Johnson had served in the first Trump and Biden administrations before being elevated to the top intelligence watchdog post.

She was succeeded by current ICIG Christopher Fox, who said in a letter earlier this month that the complaint had been “administratively closed” in June 2025.

In the Feb. 2 letter to congressional leaders known as the “Gang of Eight” Fox noted that the complaint alleged: “(1) distribution of a highly classified intelligence report was restricted for political purposes; and (2) the responsible IC element’s Office of General Counsel failed to report a potential crime to the Department of Justice, also for political purposes.”

After the initial determination by Johnson, the whistleblower sought to disclose the complaint, which he alleged had been classified for political reasons, to members of Congress serving on intelligence committees.

But the “complexity in the classification” related to the complaint — and additional “security guidance” — delayed its delivery to those lawmakers until this month, Fox wrote in his letter.

Concerning the first allegation in the complaint, Johnson had said that “if true,” it met the statutory threshold of “urgent concern,” meaning it could be submitted to Congress.

Fox said he “would likely determine” that allegation didn’t meet the same threshold were he to review the matter again but nothing precluded the whistleblower from notifying Congress of “the fact” of the complaint.

“I agree with both inspectors general who have evaluated the matter,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said in a statement last week.

“The complaint is not credible and the inspectors general and the DNI took the necessary steps to ensure the material has [sic] handled and transmitted appropriately in accordance with law,” Cotton added.

Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) disputed that, telling CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that Johnson, “a long-term professional,” had “viewed it [the complaint] as credible.”

“We only saw it in February, and we’ve got this complete contradiction where the then-lawyer for Director Gabbard said she shared the responsibility she had to share this with Congress in June, the legal responsibility,” Warner told “Face the Nation.”

“She later stated that she was not aware of her responsibility. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse if you’re the Director of National Intelligence.”

Dever denied that claim Monday, writing: “Given the highly classified nature of the underlying allegations that your client chose to include, the ICIG’s normal methods of informing the committees of the allegations were insufficient to protect exquisite intelligence.”

“Therefore, ODNI provided security guidance that your client’s complaint be hand-delivered by the ICIG to the ‘Gang of Eight,’ on a ‘read and return’ basis and that no notes be taken. As a result, ODNI has satisfied congressional notification requirements.”

Gabbard herself claimed in an X post Saturday: “The first time I saw the whistleblower complaint was 2 weeks ago when I had to review it to provide guidance on how it should be securely shared with Congress”

“As Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Warner knows very well that whistleblower complaints that contain highly classified and compartmented intelligence—even if they contain baseless allegations like this one—must be secured in a safe, which the Biden-era Inspector General Tamara Johnson did and her successor, Inspector General Chris Fox, continued to do,” she added. 

“After IC Inspector General Fox hand-delivered the complaint to the Gang of 8, the complaint was returned to a safe where it remains, consistent with any information of such sensitivity,” Gabbard continued.

“Either Senator Warner knows these facts and is intentionally lying to the American people, or he doesn’t have a clue how these things work and is therefore not qualified to be in the U.S. Senate—and certainly not the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee,” she also said.

Bakaj did not immediately respond to a request for comment.