Saturday, September 28, 2019

Intel Community Quietly Scrapped Requirement For "First-Hand Knowledge" Before CIA 'Rumorblower' Relied On Hearsay

In the months leading up to a CIA whistleblower's hearsay complaint about President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the US intelligence community quietly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers must provide first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings, according to The Federalist's Sean Davis.

"Then, on September 24 - days before the anti-Trump was declassified and released to the public - a new version of the whistleblower complaint form revised in August, 2019 - the Disclosure of Urgent Concern" form - was uploaded and used by the CIA employee to file the complaint.

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."

The internal properties of the newly revised "Disclosure of Urgent Concern" form, which the intelligence community inspector general requires to be submitted under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, show that the document was uploaded on September 24, 2019, at 4:25 p.m., just days before the anti-Trump complaint was declassified and released to the public.

A previous version of the document provided by the ICIG and DNI until recently declared that whistleblower complaints must only contain first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoing - and made clear that hearsay, gossip or rumor would be rejected.

15/ bottom line: it appears almost certain that, subsequent to the CIA operative "WB" complaint, the DNI introduced a brand new Urgent Disclosure Form which offered a previously unavailable alternative to report allegations with no personal knowledge https://t.

If any doubt remains, the CIA employee told Schiff Burr in their August 12 letter; "I was not a direct witness to most of the events," which is repeated in the actual complaint as: "I was not a witness to most of the events described...".


https://www.zerohedge.com/political/intel-community-quietly-scrapped-requirement-first-hand-knowledge-cia-rumorblower-relied

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