After Federalist reporting unearthed the Intelligence Community Inspector General's material changes to its whistleblower complaint intake procedures, a battle has ensued over whether the changes matter.
President Trump tweeted Monday morning, asking emphatically "WHO CHANGED THE LONG STANDING WHISTLEBLOWER RULES JUST BEFORE SUBMITTAL OF THE FAKE WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT? DRAIN THE SWAMP!" The president's tweet appears to have prompted the impeachment cheerleaders at The Daily Beast to claim "Trump [had] joined an army of conservative commentators in pushing a false story" and smearing his own ICIG, Michael Atkinson.
Is the story false? There Is No Dispute that the Form Changed The detractors are right about one thing: the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act statute doesn't actually prohibit a purported whistleblower from initiating a complaint based on hearsay.
As Sean Davis reported in The Federalist Friday, quoting from the original documents: A previous version of the whistleblower complaint document, which the ICIG and DNI until recently provided to potential whistleblowers, declared that any complaint must contain only first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoing and that complaints that provide only hearsay, rumor, or gossip would be rejected.
' 'If you think that wrongdoing took place, but can provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions, will not be able to process the complaint or information for submission as an ICWPA.' The documents clearly show the process was changed, and the previously explicit regulatory requirements for first-hand information were suddenly eliminated.
Under the law, the ICIG is the office that sets the internal policy and instructions for reporting and investigating whistleblower complaints.
While the ICIG would likely have been obligated to make a preliminary inquiry regardless of the provenance of the information, it is entirely reasonable from an administrative process standpoint that an organization with the ICIG's responsibilities would consider it desirable to discourage hearsay allegations in favor of first-hand complaints.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/01/left-tries-to-wave-away-ig-changes-allowing-whistleblowers-to-weaponize-hearsay/
President Trump tweeted Monday morning, asking emphatically "WHO CHANGED THE LONG STANDING WHISTLEBLOWER RULES JUST BEFORE SUBMITTAL OF THE FAKE WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT? DRAIN THE SWAMP!" The president's tweet appears to have prompted the impeachment cheerleaders at The Daily Beast to claim "Trump [had] joined an army of conservative commentators in pushing a false story" and smearing his own ICIG, Michael Atkinson.
Is the story false? There Is No Dispute that the Form Changed The detractors are right about one thing: the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act statute doesn't actually prohibit a purported whistleblower from initiating a complaint based on hearsay.
As Sean Davis reported in The Federalist Friday, quoting from the original documents: A previous version of the whistleblower complaint document, which the ICIG and DNI until recently provided to potential whistleblowers, declared that any complaint must contain only first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoing and that complaints that provide only hearsay, rumor, or gossip would be rejected.
' 'If you think that wrongdoing took place, but can provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions, will not be able to process the complaint or information for submission as an ICWPA.' The documents clearly show the process was changed, and the previously explicit regulatory requirements for first-hand information were suddenly eliminated.
Under the law, the ICIG is the office that sets the internal policy and instructions for reporting and investigating whistleblower complaints.
While the ICIG would likely have been obligated to make a preliminary inquiry regardless of the provenance of the information, it is entirely reasonable from an administrative process standpoint that an organization with the ICIG's responsibilities would consider it desirable to discourage hearsay allegations in favor of first-hand complaints.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/01/left-tries-to-wave-away-ig-changes-allowing-whistleblowers-to-weaponize-hearsay/
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