Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Twisted Pair, Part 1: US & UK "Barrelling Towards Great Troubles"

Schiff ripped Maguire for breaching a law that requires him to share with Congress any whistleblower complaint deemed urgent by the intelligence community's inspector general.

DNI general counsel Jason Klitenic insisted in a letter to Schiff on Tuesday that Maguire had followed the letter of the law in blocking the transmission of the complaint to Congress.

The whistleblower statute governing his agency, he said, only applies when the complaint involves a member of the intelligence community.

Under the statute, Klitenic stated, deeming a whistleblower complaint "Urgent" is only valid when it applies to conduct by someone "Within the responsibility and authority" of the DNI. Therefore, he said, after consulting with the Justice Department, he determined the complaint did not qualify as an "Urgent" concern requiring transmittal to Congress.

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."

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.

https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2019/09/twisted-pair-1-us/

No comments: