Comments

Conveniently changing the rules: blowing that second-hand whistle, hard — 52 Comments

1. It really wasn’t a valid witch hunt without this change.

2. Anyone mention the Clinton treaty making asking for help a kind of ok thing?

3. Dan Coates was rather summarily removed as Director of National Intelligence around July 15. Coates must have been instrumental in changing the rules. I suspect President Trump got wind of what was happening.

4. OK. I like conspiracies. Nonetheless, I do try to reign in the tendency.

   However, this is blatant. This is a Deep Swamp black op.

5. “I suspect President Trump got wind of what was happening.”

   That seems unlikely to me, since as the Article II Executive the President can simply negative any such administrative rule change. So I’d assume he had no idea this has happened. He ought to know it now however, and we should watch to see how he reacts.

6. Does the “whistleblower” have to be a government employee? If not, we should all inundate the IG’s office with reports of every rumour we have ever heard or read about of malfeasance on the part of the Dems.

7. The new DNI might be either behind this or, as naive as he looked at the House hearing, might have allowed staff to put one over on him.

   Time to shut down the CIA

8. More here. this is more and more like a novel.

9. Would Trump’s action be acceptable if the the target wasn’t joe Biden but someone else such as John McCain or Mitt Romney? If trump’s action was acceptable so long as the target wasn’t a potential direct opponent of his in the upcoming election, does it mean now running for president would be the safe haven for all shady politicians since their background is now off limits and any investigation into their alleged criminal activities by the incumbent admin will be considered impeachable offense? If that is the case, does that mean even when trump is out of office and the dems win back president they will never be able to investigate trump as long as he keeps getting his children running for president and stay in the political spotlight and remains a political rival of the dems? If investigating a political rival is so wrong then why the heck can the congressional democrats continue to heckle trump with endless investigations, isn’t he the dems’ political rival? If only your friends and allies can investigate you no politician will ever be in jail

10. Nonetheless, I do try to reign in the tendency.

    I can’t believe I wrote “reign” instead of “rein.” It’s one of my pet peeves, but when I wrote it, I had seen “reign” misused so many times that it leapt to mind.

    (Oh, good grief, my browser spell-checker doesn’t know that “leapt” is a real word.)

11. There were obviously a lot of hands–from many different parts of our government– involved in crafting this Ukrainian phone call set up.

12. Snow on Pine:

    It took a village.

13. Do these people involved in what is truly an attempted coup d’etat really believe–after all this, after all the examples of their handiwork that we have seen revealed– that anyone with half a brain would ever trust them again, believe anything that they might say, believe that they can be trusted in any way, that these coup plotters believe in our Constitution, our Republic, and rule by the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box, or are fit for any public office or government position?

14. Snow on Pine:

    What they really believe is that most of America has less than half a brain. They also believe that with the help of their liars in Congress and their propagandists in the press, even those with half a brain will not hear the evidence about what they’re doing, and will believe the lies.

15. It took a village.

    neo: Wow. And funny!

    You rarely come so close to the conspiracy theory side of the street.

16. What they really believe is that most of America has less than half a brain. They also believe that with the help of their liars in Congress and their propagandists in the press, even those with half a brain will not hear the evidence about what they’re doing, and will believe the lies.

    neo: Yes. I won’t say they are wrong.

17. However, looking at the glass half-full, it may be a valid measure of the Swamp’s desperation.

    This may be their best play, even if it largely unraveled in a few days for those paying attention.

18. Huxley,

    I think that you are right about how the Left thinks that Conservatives are just stupid. But that will be their undoing. They underestimated their opposition and framed them all as a basket of “deplorables”. That is part of why they were so shocked when Trump won.

19. huxley:

    That’s what’s so frightening about the Steele thing and this. They both do represent a fairly well-orchestrated and multi-faceted conspiracy.

    I tend to resist conspiracy as an explanation for anything. But sometimes they do exist. The left and the Democrats have made no secret of their desire to do just about anything to implicate Trump, so it’s not hard to believe.

20. I don’t know what kind of relationship past Presidents might have had with the “Intelligence Community,” or whether they regarded this “community” and its members as essentially honest and trying to do the best they could—in fidelity to the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and our traditional values—for our country.

    After their performance over the last couple of years, I’d think that no future President—who isn’t naive and an idiot—will ever again repose any real trust in this community, but will, instead, regard this Intelligence Community as his enemy.

21. My greatest fear is that, knowing that they cannot actually beat Trump at the ballot box–and if President Trump survives all the made up crap they will throw at him until that election–the Left/Democrats will engage in election fraud on a massive scale.

22. Hey, lefties: okay, you have your histrionics, your grandstanding, your falsehoods: impeach him, already.

    P.S. — good luck getting a 2/3-vote conviction in the Senate trial.

    Then what?

23. Everything you need to know about the Leftist control of the Democratic Party is in this essay (via PowerLine Picks today).

    https://newcriterion.com/issues/2019/10/leninthink
    Leninthink by Gary Saul Morson

24. https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/09/26/whistleblower-complaint-paints-picture-of-frustrated-trump-policy-opponents-in-intel-community/

    Tried to post excerpts but no luck; this was in reply to TommyJay on another thread wondering about why the Whistleblower was so upset at Trump moving the transcript to the safer location.

25. Tommy wondered if the transcript was a “sting” — I wouldn’t rule that out.
    Here is what I tried to quote.

    The “whistleblower” complaint about the Trump-Zelensky phone call in July 2019 tells us some important things about the continuing dynamics of opposition to Trump inside the intelligence community (and, it appears, the State Department). Let us say rather that it confirms those important things, which we have had prior reason to deduce.

    A portion of the complaint that most readers will gloss over is a big, informative “tell” here, so I will start with that. It’s the whistleblower’s point that the transcript of the phone call was saved on a segregated, special-codeword computer system, described on page 1 of the classified appendix.
    …
    One thing to be read is that the “whistleblower’s” sources depend on things like access to transcripts, to have knowledge of what’s being done in high-level encounters like presidential phone calls.

    That means the mental image we’ve been given of the “whistleblower” and his/her sources as insiders to the transactions outlined in the complaint is a false one. What confirms that for us is the difference in tone and inference between the complaint’s description of the phone call and the actual content of the phone call, which we can read in the transcript.
    …
    There is nothing damning or untoward in the transcript. If the “whistleblower’s” sources were as concerned about propriety and accuracy as the reference to using the wrong computer system is meant to imply, they would have ensured that the complaint comported better with the original content of the 25 July phone call. That they did not is a strong indicator that they could not. With the “wrong computer system” complaint, they were inadvertently signaling their exclusion from direct access.
    …
    The annoyance that huffs and puffs rather humorously from the “wrong classified system” reference indicates that the sources were denied their usual method of trolling for leak material; i.e., on the general-access classified computer system. Apparently, the Trump administration has gotten smart about that.
    …
    If the “whistleblower’s” sources weren’t working from the U.S. transcript of the 25 July phone call, which was sequestered on a restricted-access computer system, what were they working from?

    RTWT.

26. I think Hillary is the major organizing and driving force. Impeachment will happen and fail in the Senate.

    If I am correct about Clinton, the next development after Biden sinks will be a surge by one or more Democratic Governors to stop Warren. The MSM will find someone and hype him (I think it will be a him) constantly. Hillary will need a VP who has a following.

    Then will come calls for Hillary to enter the race from prominent Democrats and GOP Never Trumpers.

    She won’t actually run in any primaries and her supporters will point out that she already did that. She will dominate all the MSM coverage. She probably won’t have any specific big policy proposals beyond criticizing Warren positions.

    She will take the Convention and the rematch will be on.

    A stock market plunge is likely, and a recession is almost unavoidable. Hillary will blame Trump but it won’t work. Trump will successfully blame it on Hillary and the corrupt Democrats.

    Trump will win in a landslide, giving him control of both houses.
    The totally corrupt Boomer Democrat Party will be effectively destroyed.

    With his new majority, Trump will reorganize everything, starting with the huge Deep State created for the Cold War.

    The current hysteria is necessary to drive the needed change IMO.

    Brexit will happen, and lead to a new Anglosphere, including India and the countries around China. Trump will engineer a settlement of the Ukraine/Russia conflict, and Russia will join the West against a resurgent China.

    Future historians will call this period the Trump Restoration.

27. Dick Illyes:
    Ref your statements that “Brexit will happen,” etc.: From your lips to God’s ear.

    If I had no faith in God I’d be terrified right-about-now. As it is, I’m, uhmmm, “deeply concerned”.

28. According to Julian Sanchez,:

    1. The ICIG hasn’t changed the standard.
    2. The Federalist is confusing the standard for transmitting a complaint to DNI (you need first hand knowledge) with the standard for making a report in the first place (you don’t).
    3. The (Trump appointed) IG independently corroborated the whistleblower report in order to meet the former standard.
    4. He explained this to Mollie Hemingway before the Federalist made this mistake, but apparently she did not communicate it to whoever this guy is who wrote the article.

    https://twitter.com/normative/status/1177708262612983809

29. The DNI determined the submittal did not rise to meet the criteria of the “urgent concern” requirement under statute; wasn’t even meet as under Intelligence Community administration, but rather was concerned with matter wholly under the Office of the Executive as such. The ICIG was wandering off base and was tagged “out”. So much for that.

    Julian Sanchez reads the call transcript as “confirming” the unsupported second hand claims made in the “whistleblower” complaint, rather than refuting the unsubstantiated fiction the complaint actually constitutes. So.

    Trust the politically biased Julian Sanchez’ interpretation? Ha. Not a moment. No further than the politically biased ICIG, or this desperate politically biased manju twit. Get real.

    Moreover, Davis’ article includes a screenshot of the pre-Aug. form section specifically addressing first hand knowledge as well a link to the pdf of the most recently altered form permitting second hand hearsay. Sanchez does nothing of the sort. He relies on another twitter commenter’s screenshot of a 2017 form.

    Davis contacted the Office of DNI seeking an explanation or other clarifying comment and writes of that: “Reached by phone on Friday afternoon, a Director of National Intelligence official refused to comment on any questions about the secret revision to the whistleblower form, including when it was revised to eliminate the requirement of first-hand knowledge and for what reason.”

    “Refused to comment”, rather than *give us a bit of time to look and we’ll get back to you, since this sort of thing ought to be clear to the American people, given what’s riding on it*.

    Yeah, transparent as mud in a predicate for impeachment matter of urgent concern to every citizen of the United States. Heads should roll.

30. Time to shut down the CIA

    Something like that. Some enabling legislation that would allow an authoritative restructuring. Then have the military occupy their headquarters and secure the place. Extract a modest corps of officials who have unique functions not replicated in the other agencies and put the rest of them out on the curb.

    As for the NSA, it would be agreeable if its communications and cybersecurity function were separated from its spying function and placed in a separate agency, and it’s spying function given a great deal more intrusive oversight than it has received to date.

    As for federal law enforcement, spread it out over 7 departments with distinct functions. And, while you’re at it, split the FBI into about six pieces.

31. 3. The (Trump appointed) IG independently corroborated the whistleblower report in order to meet the former standard.

    I can’t figure out if you’re stupid or you fancy we are. Whatever Correct-the-Record pays you, it’s too much.

32. The IC rules on “whistleblowers” are not the only rules changed.

    Pelosi has changed House rules so Republicans are excluded from depositions of State Department officials.

    Keep in mind Speaker Pelosi selected former insider DOJ official Douglas Letter to be the Chief Legal Counsel for the House. That becomes important when we get to the part about the official full house impeachment vote. The Lawfare group and DNC far-left activists were ecstatic at the selection. Doug Letter was a deep political operative within the institution of the DOJ who worked diligently to promote the weaponized political values of former democrat administrations.

    Speaker Pelosi has authorized the House committees to work together under the umbrella of an “official impeachment inquiry.” The House Intelligence (Schiff) and Judiciary Committees (Nadler) are currently working together leading this process.

    And It is more than likely the vote will pass through the House on party lines. Once Pelosi achieves a vote of passage on any single article President Trump is considered impeached.

    Back to this two-week break. While the technical reason for the recess is to celebrate the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, it is now obvious the sequence of events has been constructed specifically toward these impeachment efforts.

    There are 31 House districts currently held by Democrats which President Trump won in 2016; Pelosi is giving those members an opportunity to make their impeachment case to their constituents now, but failure to support the effort is likely not optional for all except a few of the most tenuously vulnerable. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip James Clyburn will assemble enough votes for impeachment.

    This is all planned and Republicans are not invited.

33. What would be funny if we weren’t talking about the future of the country is that while all this is going on, we’re seeing a real time demonstration of where it eventually leads in the ongoing collateral damage of “cancel culture.” What started as a weapon against the Right is now being used against the Left, both by conservatives and liberals.

    The only upside to Trump being removed from office would be to see the stunned amazement from NeverTrumpers when Pence or whoever ran in 2020 received the exact same treatment, to be quickly followed by the shocked horror of any Democrat to the right of Bernie Sanders when they realize they’re next on the target list.

    Mike

34. My wager would be that Pelosi’s idea is that an impeachment vote won’t move the needle much because that needle just hasn’t been moving in the last several years, and that it might be useful to placate the fanatics in the Democratic Party electorate and the dim-witted exhibitionists in the Democratic congressional caucus. It goes to the Senate; Murkowski, Collins, Sasse, Romney, Portman, Burr, and Manchin dither for a while but eventually vote no.

35. AesopFan on September 28, 2019 at 1:47 am

    Interesting. It’s so laughable and bizarre that part of the whistleblower complaint is that Trump’s people put the transcript on the “wrong server” where we can’t go spy on it, damn it. As though there is this vast White House machinery that the President has no control over. The way I see the Constitutional authorities, is that the computer servers as well as the WH staff serve at the President’s pleasure.

    As an alternative complaint, imagine that Trump had moved a highly classified transcript doc. from the national security server to the semi-open confidential server. This, of course, would risk compromising nat. security, but still would be within the Pres. authority. In the actual case, the only thing at risk is the leaker’s ability to leak.

    Interestingly, the leaker did not actually leak, or break any laws, but still achieved the objective of getting the transcript into the media. (Do you admire the craftiness?) Pence advised against releasing the transcript.

    “What were they [the whistleblower’s sources] working from?” — AesopFan

    The obvious answer (not necessarily the correct one) is that they were working from the memory of the CIA jerk who had transcribed the call, who is not the whistleblower.

    “That’s what’s so frightening about the Steele thing and this. They both do represent a fairly well-orchestrated and multi-faceted conspiracy.” — Neo

    This is increasingly looking like a “Star Chamber” process, with the whistleblower and impeachment inquiry merely being the public part of the largely secret process.

    I wonder if we’re heading down a path that could entail the SCOTUS stepping in to define the Constitutional parameters, such as when Dershowitz says that the impeachment threshold must start with high crimes. Though I suspect the Justice Roberts would not do anything that might get his wife disinvited from the cool Georgetown parties.

36. Pingback:If All You See… » Pirate's Cove

37. AesopFan: The LeninThink piece was great! I had run into about half of those Lenin quotes in scattered places before — enough to know Lenin was not the good cop to Stalin’s bad cop — so it was a service to see all such quotes in one place.

    Here’s a bit more from my favorite Joycean-hippie-magician-libertarian-writer, Robert Anton Wilson:

    It is no accident that Lenin could not bear to listen to Beethoven (the music made him want to weep and treat people gently, he said); nor that Ludwig’s music was banned in Communist China under Chariman Mao Tse-Tung; nor that America’s leading Marxist theoretician denounced the Ninth Symphony in particular as a Great Lie ‘invalidated by the culture’ which honors it, the culture of Occidental Individualism.”

    –Robert Anton Wilson, “The Illuminati Papers”
    __________________________________
    Hmm. Edit is appearing more frequently.

38. Can anyone remind me of the transcripts of phone calls President Pseudonym held with foreign leaders that were either leaked or forced to be released by Pseudonym’s office owing to false accusations of corruption or treasonous behavior? My memory isn’t quite as good as it used to be, so I fear I’m forgetting.

    Oh, and did y’all notice Susan Rice admitted last night that the Pseudonym office also used the same highly classified server to store some call transcripts? Weird, right? I mean, what’s the worry when Mrs. Clinton’s server wasn’t a problem for Pseudonym’s communications?

39. She will take the Convention and the rematch will be on.

    A stock market plunge is likely, and a recession is almost unavoidable. Hillary will blame Trump but it won’t work. Trump will successfully blame it on Hillary and the corrupt Democrats.

    Trump will win in a landslide, giving him control of both houses.
    The totally corrupt Boomer Democrat Party will be effectively destroyed.

    I think you are half right. With the collapse of Warren support by donors (We are lefties but this is business) and her wealth tax proposals, Hillary is in good shape to run as a “Moderate.” Lots of Democrats (what percent I don’t know) are worried about the hard left.

    Whether he will win has a lot to do with voter ID and stopping fraud by the left. I’m not sure Republicans are smart enough to fight ballot harvesting.

40. I know of nothing better than [Beethoven’s] Appassionata and could listen to it every day. What astonishing, superhuman music! It always makes me proud, perhaps with a childish naiveté, to think that people can work such miracles! … But I can’t listen to music very often, it affects my nerves. I want to say sweet, silly things, and pat the little heads of people who, living in a filthy hell, can create such beauty. These days, one can’t pat anyone on the head nowadays, they might bite your hand off. Hence, you have to beat people’s little heads, beat mercilessly, although ideally we are against doing any violence to people. Hm — what a devillishly difficult job!

    –V.I. Lenin

    Oh. Lenin didn’t really want “to beat people’s little heads,” so it’s OK. They made him do it.
    ____________________________
    Edit is definitely appearing more often.

41. I used the edit function in my previous, but did not add the Pirate’s Cove nonsense that somehow attached at the bottom.

42. She will take the Convention and the rematch will be on.

    Unless each of the other candidates is run over by a truck, that won’t happen. We can say that with moderate confidence because nothing like that has happened since the ancien regime in presidential nominating contests evaporated. The last occasion a candidate was competitive absent a satisfactory performance in contested primaries and caucuses was Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 campaign. The last time you had a competitive candidate whose candidacy was made explicit and official less than a year before the general election was in 1976. Your single best wager is that there will be two, three, four, or five competitive candidates, and those candidates are already in front of you. Of the remainder, Yang, Gabbard, and Steyer are (one might surmise) the only ones who have non-careerist reasons for remaining in the race. The rest will be gone when the money runs out.

    Joseph Biden gets better press than did Dan Quayle, because reporters are intellectual and moral frauds. In his prime, he had a mediocre intellect; he also gives evidence of sociopathic dishonesty (which Quayle never did). There’s a great deal of artifice in public life (as there is in some occupations), but telling bald biographical fictions doesn’t go under the heading of artifice. It won’t be surprising if under scrutiny he burns up like a bug under a magnifying glass. If he fails, the tech barons and the casino bankers have a couple of alternatives, both of whom are circulating petitions to enter primaries and both of whom are from Democratic Party mascot groups.

    The electorate is, as the students of comparative politics say, severely ‘pillarized’ and has been for 20 years. Even under optimal conditions, BO could do no better than did George Bush the elder in 1988. There will be no landslide. Under the best case scenario, Republicans retake the House and hold the Senate.

43. Instapundit just linked this:

    Dates on the pdf of the DNI whistle blower form changed

    Steve MacIntyre blew the whistle on M. Mann’s phoney “hockey stick” about 18 years ago. He’s one of my AGW skeptic heroes. Along with McKittrick and Watts. He checks data closely.

44. CapnRusty slipped. Hooray, comment edit!
    _____________________________________
    CapnRusty: Stephen MacIntyre is the original Big Dog of climate change skepticism — he busted Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick.”

    “Mann’s Hockey Stick “Whitewash” – Steve McIntyre”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqzcA7SsqSA

45. I quotes me (which I don’t like to do but for followup):

    That seems unlikely to me, since as the Article II Executive the President can simply negative any such administrative rule change. So I’d assume he had no idea this has happened. He ought to know it now however, and we should watch to see how he reacts.

    Pres. Trump tweeted on the rule-change yesterday, here: https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1178076844135976966

    WOW, they got caught. End the Witch Hunt now!

    That’s it?

    That’s not sufficient, not at all. This is his agency. He’s the Executive. It’s his exclusive power to do something about this bogus rule making. Come on, man. Show us you’re on top of this. It’s your job, in more ways than one.

46. Another followup:

    Sean Davis, twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1178797068128866304

    Complete vindication of our reporting in this ICIG letter, following days of stonewalling. The ICIG just admitted it changed the form in August, and eliminated its previous guidance, just as we reported on Friday. https://dni.gov/files/ICIG/Doc [pdf]

    Additionally, congressional sources say the IC IG did not turn over the anti-Trump complainant’s whistleblower form to Congress. On that form, the complainant attested under penalty of perjury that the entire of his complaint was true. In fact, it is riddled with falsehoods.

    Pdf contents (I hope!):

    Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community’s Statement on Processing of Whistleblower Complaints
    (September 30, 2019) The Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) processes complaints or information with respect to alleged urgent concerns in accordance with the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) and the ICIG’s authorizing statute. With respect to the whistleblower complaint received by the ICIG on August 12, 2019, the ICIG processed and reviewed the complaint in accordance with the law.
    The law required that the Complainant be “[a]n employee of an element of the intelligence community, an employee assigned or detailed to an element of the intelligence community, or an employee of a contractor to the intelligence community.” 50 U.S.C. § 3033(k)(5)(A). The ICIG confirmed the Complainant was such an employee, detailee, or contractor.
    The law also required that the Complainant provide a complaint or information with respect to an “urgent concern,” which is defined, in relevant part, as: “A serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of the law or Executive order, or deficiency relating to the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority of the Director of National Intelligence involving classified information, but does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters.” Id. § 3033(k)(5)(G)(i). The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community determined that the Complainant alleged information with respect to such an alleged urgent concern.
    In addition, the law required the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community within 14 calendar days to determine whether information with respect to the urgent concern “appeared credible.” Id. § 3033(k)(5)(B). The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community determined, after conducting a preliminary review, that there were reasonable grounds to believe the urgent concern appeared credible.
    At the time the Complainant filed the Disclosure of Urgent Concern form with the ICIG on August 12, 2019, the ICIG followed its routine practice and provided the Complainant information, including “Background Information on ICWPA Process,” which included the following language:
    In order to find an urgent concern “credible,” the IC IG must be in possession of reliable, first-hand information. The IC IG cannot transmit information via the ICWPA based on an employee’s second-hand knowledge of wrongdoing. This includes information received from another person, such as when a fellow employee informs you that he/she witnessed some type of wrongdoing. (Anyone with first-hand knowledge of the allegations may file a disclosure in writing directly with the IC IG.) Similarly, speculation about the existence of wrongdoing does not provide sufficient basis to meet the statutory requirements of the ICWPA. If you think wrongdoing took place, but can provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions, IC IG will not be able to process the complaint or information for submission as an ICWPA.
    The Disclosure of Urgent Concern form the Complainant submitted on August 12, 2019 is the same form the ICIG has had in place since May 24, 2018, which went into effect before Inspector General Atkinson entered on duty as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community on May 29, 2018, following his swearing in as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community on May 17, 2018. Although the form requests information about whether the Complainant possesses first-hand knowledge about the matter about which he or she is lodging the complaint, there is no such requirement set forth in the statute. In fact, by law the Complainant ­ or any individual in the Intelligence Community who wants to report information with respect to an urgent concern to the congressional intelligence committees ­ need not possess first-hand information in order to file a complaint or information with respect to an urgent concern. The ICIG cannot add conditions to the filing of an urgent concern that do not exist in law. Since Inspector General Atkinson entered on duty as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, the ICIG has not rejected the filing of an alleged urgent concern due to a whistleblower’s lack of first-hand knowledge of the allegations.
    The Complainant on the form he or she submitted on August 12, 2019 in fact checked two relevant boxes: The first box stated that, “I have personal and/or direct knowledge of events or records involved”; and the second box stated that, “Other employees have told me about events or records involved.”
    As part of his determination that the urgent concern appeared credible, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community determined that the Complainant had official and authorized access to the information and sources referenced in the Complainant’s Letter and Classified Appendix, including direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct, and that the Complainant has subject matter expertise related to much of the material information provided in the Complainant’s Letter and Classified Appendix. In short, the ICIG did not find that the Complainant could “provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions,” which would have made it much harder, and significantly less likely, for the Inspector General to determine in a 14-calendar day review period that the complaint “appeared credible,” as required by statute. Therefore, although the Complainant’s Letter acknowledged that the Complainant was not a direct witness to the President’s July 25, 2019, telephone call with the Ukrainian President, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community determined that other information obtained during the ICIG’s preliminary review supported the Complainant’s allegations. The Complainant followed the law in filing the urgent concern complaint, and the ICIG followed the law in transmitting the information to the Acting Director of National Intelligence on August 26, 2019.
    In 2018, the ICIG formed a new Center for Protected Disclosures, which has as one of its primary functions to process complaints from whistleblowers under the ICWPA. In early 2019, the ICIG hired a new Hotline Program Manager as part of the Center for Protected Disclosures to oversee the ICIG’s Hotline. In June 2019, the newly hired Director for the Center for Protected Disclosures entered on duty. Thus, the Center for Protected Disclosures has been reviewing the forms provided to whistleblowers who wish to report information with respect to an urgent concern to the congressional intelligence committees. In the process of reviewing and clarifying those forms, and in response to recent press inquiries regarding the instant whistleblower complaint, the ICIG understood that certain language in those forms and, more specifically, the informational materials accompanying the forms, could be read ­ incorrectly ­ as suggesting that whistleblowers must possess first-hand information in order to file an urgent concern complaint with the congressional intelligence committees.
    The ICIG’s Center for Protected Disclosures has developed three new forms entitled, “Report of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse UNCLASSIFIED Intake Form”; “Disclosure of Urgent Concern Form-UNCLASSIFIED”; and “External Review Panel (ERP) Request Form ­ UNCLASSIFIED.” These three new forms are now available on the ICIG’s open website and are in the process of being added to the ICIG’s classified system. The ICIG will continue to update and clarify its forms and its websites to ensure its guidance to whistleblowers is clear and strictly complies with statutory requirements. Consistent with the law, the new forms do not require whistleblowers to possess first-hand information in order to file a complaint or information with respect to an urgent concern
    In summary, regarding the instant matter, the whistleblower submitted the appropriate Disclosure of Urgent Concern form that was in effect as of August 12, 2019, and had been used by the ICIG since May 24, 2018. The whistleblower stated on the form that he or she possessed both first-hand and other information. The ICIG reviewed the information provided as well as other information gathered and determined that the complaint was both urgent and that it appeared credible. From the moment the ICIG received the whistleblower’s filing, the ICIG has worked to effectuate Congress’s intent, and the whistleblower’s intent, within the rule of law. The ICIG will continue in those efforts on behalf of all whistleblowers in the Intelligence Community.

47. Another follow up. Sheesh. Now it seems to emerge that the “wishyblower” used the older, pre-Aug 2019, explicitly first-hand knowledge form when applying to the ICIG. The incongruence was noted by the ICIG Office and the form then altered to accept “second-hand” knowledge. Ex post facto. Ain’t that precious?

    Jason Beale, twitter thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/jabeale/status/1178867105011240961

    That’s the point, @NatashaBertrand. The May 2018 form contained an explicit warning that second-hand or hearsay information wouldn’t be accepted and processed for submission as an ICWPA. The WB explicitly stated that his info was 2nd hand. Someone recognized that the form…

    Natasha Bertrand: New from ICIG: pushback on the conspiracy theory that IG whistleblower form was recently changed. “The Disclosure of Urgent Concern form the Complainant submitted on August 12, 2019 is the same form the ICIG has had in place since May 24, 2018.” https://dni.gov/files/ICIG/Doc

    …containing the explicit rejection of second-hand/hearsay would probably make its way into the press and invite questions as to why the WBers admittedly second-hand info was accepted. So they changed it. And the ICIG confirmed that they changed it in your linked statement.
    So, yes – the WBer used the old form, with the old requirement for first-hand information, to report his/her second-hand information. That was the whole point of the criticism. That they changed it after this complaint isn’t a debunking – it’s validation of the criticism.

48. Stephen McIntyre, twitter response to Mollie Hemingway: https://mobile.twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1178883407646019584

    IMO, as in my original thread, the change in form was done to try to conceal the conflict between policy underpinning Form 401 at time of submission of WB Complaint and ICIG decision to proceed based entirely on second-hand information plus public news

49. Not just @TherouxPeter has recommended this. (wink)

    Mike Doran, twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/Doranimated/status/1179001742119362560

    This is damning. The IC is encouraging a deluge of hearsay complaints against the president. The Ukraine complaint does not even pertain to intelligence matters. If I were Trump I would, as @TherouxPeter suggested, remove most IC officials from the 18-acre White House complex.

50. UndercoverHuber, tread reader app of a thorough summation of where the ICIG form change caper stands today: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1179032899087040513.html

51. Reaching back even further into the SpyGate story, comes a reemergence of the question “Who leaked Gen. Flynn’s phone conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius?”

    Could be Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell is closing in on an answer.

    Nick Short, twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/PoliticalShort/status/1179041365382041601

    ICYMI: Amendment to Flynn’s motion to compel production of Brady material. Regarding “James Baker, current head of DOD Office of Net Assessment, production of Baker’s calendar showing his meetings & comms w/David Ignatius from 7/1/2015 through March 2017.” https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/25/wha…

52. Sec. Pompeo responds to House committees’ subpoena (sdferr precis): *Go get stuffed.*

    https://mobile.twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1179040126032367616

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>