Well!

September 27, 2019 – 11:15 pm

From Sean Davis, reporting at The Federalist:

Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.

The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.”

How convenient. More here.

Posted by Malcolm on at 11:15 pm, filed under Politics. RSS feed for this post. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.

5 Comments

  1. JK says

    It’s actually a little more convenient than the guy writing for The Federalist makes it out to be – check the date of the Revision – lower right corner on each page.

    https://www.dni.gov/files/ICIG/Documents/Hotline/Urgent%20Concern%20Disclosure%20Form.pdf

    It’s almost as if the Government Printing Office got a rush order.

    Posted September 28, 2019 at 3:01 am | Permalink
  2. slumlord says

    Go after the guys who authorised the change. Hunt them down.

    Posted September 28, 2019 at 3:23 am | Permalink
  3. JK says

    Good thinking Slumlord.

    You by any chance watch Pathfinder Intel Chair Schiff’s opening questioning of Acting Director Maguire? Notice “the big issue” Schiff made of the ICIG’s finding the allegations were credible?

    “Credible” being extremely important in light of the way the instructions for filling out the form were pre-revision of August of 2019.

    Funny thing is I can’t seem to find the old form where I seem to remember I’d bookmarked it.

    Fortunately I have access to some old papers:

    IC IG – ICWSP
    Urgent Concern Disclosure Form
    Page ii

    FIRST HAND INFORMATION REQUIRED

    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 IC IG.) Similarly, speculation about the existence of wrongdoing does not provide sufficient legal basis to meet the statutory requirements of the ICWPA. If you think that 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.

    I affirm that to be a true and accurate reflection of what the requirements for filing “an urgent” used to be.

    JK

    Further reading here:

    https://fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R45345.pdf

    Posted September 28, 2019 at 3:49 am | Permalink
  4. JK says

    https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2019/09/27/breaking-intel-community-secretly-changed-whistle-blower-rules-allow-trump-ukraine-complaint-just-days-filed/

    Here’s another issue that’s going to be pressed in the coming days. Was the form even really revised in August? Because the actual form that claims an August revision was only actually released two days ago on September 25th. It looks like it could be back-fill to cover up the intel community originally breaking the rules by allowing the complaint.

    This complaint is looking more and more like a coordinated hit. The way it was written, the timeline involved, the way Adam Schiff knew about it weeks before it was even filed, and now this rule change which made it even possible. It’s all too much to be coincidence.

    https://www.lawfareblog.com/mysterious-whistleblower-complaint-what-adam-schiff-talking-about

    ***

    An “interesting comment thread” can be found (my having thrown a dart to find a spot to begin at) on this post:

    https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/09/the-non-whistleblower-by-larry-c-johnson.html#comment-6a00d8341c72e153ef0240a4b2a498200d

    Posted September 28, 2019 at 4:27 pm | Permalink
  5. Fergus says

    Clearly the change in requirements for a complaint indicates that this is a setup. Especially since we now know this is based on voices speaking to the rumor monger and advice he got from his psychic adviser.

    Worse is the complaint has nothing to do with the criteria set up by the Intelligence authorities. This smells of coup.

    Posted October 1, 2019 at 2:47 am | Permalink

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