Trump Administration Whistleblower Cover-Up

[Teallaura]

Unsubstantiated roomers: the very worst kind of roomers.

Eh, it's the insubstantial roomers that bother me...

[Mountain Man]

Better than insubstantial bloomers!

[JimL]

Says the person trying to desperately link Trump to a mob boss, repeating unsubstantiated roomers as fact. Trump is going to win in 2020 because of hysterical people, like you. Most of the political right sources I read started off as anti Trump (shoot so did I, as my 2016 post would show). Many of them have switched due to Democrat political dirty tricks. Democrats could have made Trump into a one term president, they created this monster and I enjoy watching them get crushed by it.

One term? Democrats, because the republican congress has no principles, are hopefully going to make him less than a one term president. If the unprincipled majority Senate refuse to convict, then the Dems at least will have done the right and patriotic thing anyway by beginning the impeachment process, and when the fair objective minded republican constituency out there, (not you) see the evidence of his criminality and abuse of power, he will lose in a landslide. If not, then you'll get the dictator that you deserve!

[Bill the Cat]

One term? Democrats, because the republican congress has no principles, are hopefully going to make him less than a one term president. If the unprincipled majority Senate refuse to convict, then the Dems at least will have done the right and patriotic thing anyway by beginning the impeachment process, and when the fair objective minded republican constituency out there, (not you) see the evidence of his criminality and abuse of power, he will lose in a landslide. If not, then you'll get the dictator that you deserve!

You're such a huckster, Jim. Trump's not a dictator any more than you are a decent human being.

[seer]

You're such a huckster, Jim. Trump's not a dictator any more than you are a decent human being.

ouch...

[JimL]

You're such a huckster, Jim. Trump's not a dictator any more than you are a decent human being.

He's a dictator at heart Bill. He's also a crook. His only problem is that he's a dictator and a crook at the head of a democracy, which so far is holding up. He's made one thing apparent though, he's exposed the cracks in the system that might allow the possibility of a corrupt authoritarian like himelf to bring the system down. Probably took instructions from his best bud Vladimir.

[JimL]

ouch...

You okay?

[Sam]

To swing back around to this, the Office of the ICIG released this today, confirming that:

1) The form used by the whistleblower had/has not been recently changed
2) The whistleblower attested to both direct and indirect knowledge regarding the complaint
3) The ICIG determined that the whistleblower's direct knowledge was credible and corroborated by other sources

This would be a good time for folks to assess the value of The Federalist and what, exactly, how the author should be treated as a journalistic source if he doesn't cop to the major error.

Source: Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community’s Statement on Processing of Whistleblower Complaints. 2019.09.30

The Disclosure of Urgent Concern form the Complainant submitted on August 12, 2019 isthe same form the ICIG has had in place since May 24, 2018, which went into effect beforeInspector General Atkinson entered on duty as the Inspector General of the IntelligenceCommunity on May 29, 2018, following his swearing in as the Inspector General of theIntelligence Community on May 17, 2018. Although the form requests information about whetherthe Complainant possesses first-hand knowledge about the matter about which he or she is lodgingthe 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 respectto an urgent concern to the congressional intelligence committees – need not possess first-handinformation in order to file a complaint or information with respect to an urgent concern. TheICIG cannot add conditions to the filing of an urgent concern that do not exist in law. SinceInspector General Atkinson entered on duty as the Inspector General of the IntelligenceCommunity, the ICIG has not rejected the filing of an alleged urgent concern due to awhistleblower’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 tworelevant boxes: The first box stated that, “I have personal and/or direct knowledge of events orrecords involved”; and the second box stated that, “Other employees have told me about events orrecords involved.”

As part of his determination that the urgent concern appeared credible, the InspectorGeneral of the Intelligence Community determined that the Complainant had official andauthorized access to the information and sources referenced in the Complainant’s Letter andClassified Appendix, including direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct, and that theComplainant has subject matter expertise related to much of the material information provided inthe Complainant’s Letter and Classified Appendix. In short, the ICIG did not find that theComplainant could “provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions,” whichwould have made it much harder, and significantly less likely, for the Inspector General todetermine in a 14-calendar day review period that the complaint “appeared credible,” as requiredby statute. Therefore, although the Complainant’s Letter acknowledged that the Complainant wasnot 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 obtainedduring 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 intransmitting the information to the Acting Director of National Intelligence on August 26, 2019.

© Copyright Original Source

Could you please comment in light of this article?

Specifically,

"The internal properties of the newly revised “Disclosure of Urgent Concern” form, which the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) requires to be submitted under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), 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. The markings on the document state that it was revised in August 2019, but no specific date of revision is disclosed.

...

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.

“The [Intelligence Community Inspector General] cannot transmit information via the ICPWA based on an employee’s second-hand knowledge of wrongdoing,” the previous form stated under the bolded heading “FIRST-HAND INFORMATION REQUIRED.” “This includes information received from another person, such as when an employee informs you that he/she witnessed some type of wrongdoing.”

“If you think that wrongdoing took place, but can provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions, [the Intelligence Community Inspector General] will not be able to process the complaint or information for submission as an ICWPA,” the form concluded.

Markings on the previous version of the Disclosure of Urgent Concern form show that it was formally approved on May 24, 2018."

[RumTumTugger]

He's a dictator at heart Bill. He's also a crook. His only problem is that he's a dictator and a crook at the head of a democracy, which so far is holding up. He's made one thing apparent though, he's exposed the cracks in the system that might allow the possibility of a corrupt authoritarian like himelf to bring the system down. Probably took instructions from his best bud Vladimir.

Repeating the same non substantieted dishonest opinion does not make it true or a fact JimL it only shows you are a one trick pony and gets old.

[Mountain Man]

To swing back around to this...

From the ICIG press release:

"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..."

Very first line in The Federalist article:

"Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings."

Looks like he got the dates dead on accurate. You ask "how the author should be treated as a journalistic source if he doesn't cop to the major error," but it seems you're the one who made the "major error" by not bothering to read the source you were criticizing. Seriously, man, it was the very first line!

But I will gladly admit my own error: I was under the impression that the forms were changed right before the "whistleblower" stepped forward, but it seems they were changed over a year ago, and the public wasn't aware of the change until just recently. So I was wrong on that point. Still, it's a curious change to allow the reporting of complaints based on rumors and hearsay.

[Sam]

From the ICIG press release:

"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..."

Very first line in The Federalist article:

"Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings."

Looks like he got the dates dead on accurate. You ask "how the author should be treated as a journalistic source if he doesn't cop to the major error," but it seems you're the one who made the "major error" by not bothering to read the source you were criticizing. Seriously, man, it was the very first line!

But I will gladly admit my own error: I was under the impression that the forms were changed right before the "whistleblower" stepped forward, but it seems they were changed over a year ago, and the public wasn't aware of the change until just recently. So I was wrong on that point. Still, it's a curious change to allow the reporting of complaints based on rumors and hearsay.

Yeah, no, nice try on that one but Davis' entire thrust was that this was a recent and secret change. Davis goes on to say that the "new" form was surreptitiously uploaded only days before the whistleblower complaint was made public and marked as sometime in August 2019. As you and others tried to argue, the whole idea was that a special accommodation was being invented for this whistleblower to go along with the other talking point (also refuted by the ICIG) that the whistleblower had no "firsthand" knowledge, making the complaint invalid.

So The Federalist and Davis got it very wrong by taking something true (the "new" form came into use in late May 2018) and extending the timeline ("sometime between May 2018 and August 2019") and extrapolating that into "the form was recently changed to set up Trump with this phony whistleblower". Mendacious is the appropriate word and it should affect how people use Davis' work going forward.

--Sam

[JimL]

Repeating the same non substantieted dishonest opinion does not make it true or a fact JimL it only shows you are a one trick pony and gets old.

Oh, his guilt, his collusion, his abuse of power, his obstruction of Congress, it's all substantiated alright, but you'll find that out soon enough RTT, he's going to be impeached, and he's going to be found guilty, if not by the cowardly, unprincipled Republican Senate, then by the people. I suspect he might flee to Russia before the state courts get their hands on him after his ouster. But you're beloved dictator is done for and the crew and hostages are abandoning the fast sinking ship. You'll see, you'll see, don't worry RTT you will see.

[Mountain Man]

Yeah, no, nice try on that one but Davis' entire thrust was that this was a recent and secret change. Davis goes on to say that the "new" form was surreptitiously uploaded only days before the whistleblower complaint was made public and marked as sometime in August 2019. As you and others tried to argue, the whole idea was that a special accommodation was being invented for this whistleblower to go along with the other talking point (also refuted by the ICIG) that the whistleblower had no "firsthand" knowledge, making the complaint invalid.

So The Federalist and Davis got it very wrong by taking something true (the "new" form came into use in late May 2018) and extending the timeline ("sometime between May 2018 and August 2019") and extrapolating that into "the form was recently changed to set up Trump with this phony whistleblower". Mendacious is the appropriate word and it should affect how people use Davis' work going forward.

--Sam

So what you're saying is that he got it right, but he still got it wrong. Okay...

Try reading the whole article. The writer never definitively declares that it was a recent change, and he states multiple times that it's unclear exactly when the changes were made. He even contacted the ICIG and asked for clarification, but they refused to comment, so the article leaves it an open question. By all accounts, he did his due diligence as a reporter.

[NorrinRadd]

Tell me about it - I had one who would never clean his dirty dishes!

Through some bizarre coincidence, all my roommates also had that same one bad roommate.

[Tassman]

Says who?

The NSC’s codeword-level system is specifically designed to protect highly sensitive compartmented intelligence matters.

So now “Experts are homing in on allegations that the White House used a computer system meant for highly classified information to store details of President Donald Trump’s calls with foreign leaders, in what they described as a stark departure from how the server is normally used and how memos of the president’s exchanges are typically handled”.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...script-1514714

In short, it's being used for a cover-up.