Tulsi Gabbard to fire intelligence employees who participated in sexually explicit kink, fetish chatrooms on NSA platform

Gabbard told Fox News host Jesse Watters, "There are over 100 people from across the intelligence community that contributed to and participated in... what is really just an egregious violation of trust. What to speak of, like basic rules and standards around professionalism."

On Monday, it was revealed, after the National Security Agency's (NSA) Intelink chat logs were released, that federal employees are under investigation for allegedly misusing an internal agency messaging board to discuss sexual fantasies as part of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) focused groups titled "LBTQA" and "IC_Pride_TW.

Chat logs from "Intelink" obtained by the Manhattan Institute revealed employees from intelligence agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, US Naval Intelligence, and the NSA, discussing their experiences with gender-reassignment surgery, artificial genitalia, hormone therapy, and polyamory.

Gabbard told Watters, "We've got to take a step back because this is just barely scratching the surface. When you see what these people were saying,... they were brazen in using an NSA platform intended for professional use to conduct this kind of really, really horrific behavior. And they were brazen in doing this because, when was the last time anyone was really held accountable? Certainly not over the last four years, certainly not over the last 10, maybe 20 years, and we look at some of the biggest violations of the American people's trust in the intelligence community."

Gabbard previously called the behavior "unacceptable," and wrote on social media that "those involved WILL be held accountable." She wrote on X, "These disgusting chat groups were immediately shut down when [the president] issued his EO ending the DEI insanity the Biden Admin was obsessed with. Our IC must be focused on our core mission: ensuring the safety, security, and freedom of the American people."

According to the Manhattan Institute's senior fellow Christopher Rufo, the sexually explicit chats were given legitimacy through the NSA's DEI-focused employee resource groups, which the agency described as "not only mission critical, but mission imperative." Activists allegedly "spent all day" holding meetings with titles such as "Privilege," "Ally Awareness," "Pride," and "Transgender Community Inclusion."