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Intel Community ‘Secretly Eliminated’ Requirement Of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge, Report Says [Updated]

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Update: In response to The Federalist’s report claiming the intelligence community “secretly eliminated” the requirement for first-hand knowledge in a whistleblower complaint, the Intelligence Community Inspector General’s Office (ICIG) issued a statement on Sept. 30 refuting the claim, stating “there is no such requirement set forth in the statute”:

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, which went into effect before Inspector General [Michael] Atkinson entered on duty as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community on May 29, 2018, following his swearing in as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community on May 17, 2018. Although the form requests information about whether the Complainant possesses first-hand knowledge about the matter about which he or she is lodging the 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 respect to an urgent concern to the congressional intelligence committees – need not possess first-hand information in order to file a complaint or information with respect to an urgent concern. The ICIG cannot add conditions to the filing of an urgent concern that do not exist in law. Since Inspector General Atkinson entered on duty as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, the ICIG has not rejected the filing of an alleged urgent concern due to a whistleblower’s lack of first-hand knowledge of the allegations.

Original report below: 

A new bombshell report from The Federalist’s Sean Davis alleges that the intelligence community secretly removed a requirement on whistleblower complaint forms that required whistleblowers provide first-hand knowledge of the allegations they were reporting.

“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,” Davis reported. “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 Department of Justice (DOJ) noted that the whistleblower complaint did “not arise in connection with the operation of any U.S. government intelligence activity, and the alleged misconduct does not involve any member of the intelligence community. Rather, the complaint arises out of a confidential diplomatic communication between the President and a foreign leader that the intelligence-community complainant received secondhand.”

“I talked to a DNI official and asked when these revisions were made and why. The official said the intelligence community would not comment on anything to do with the anti-Trump whistleblower,” Davis said in a since-deleted tweet. “I never mentioned or asked about the anti-Trump whistleblower. If this isn’t a giveaway about the operation that was being run, I don’t know what is.”

According to The Federalist, the previous version of the form stated:

“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 Federalist noted the following instances in which the whistleblower, who investigators found had an anti-Trump bias, cited second-hand and third-hand information in their complaint:

“I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials,” “officials have informed me,” “officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me,” “the White House officials who told me this information,” “I was told by White House officials,” “the officials I spoke with,” “I was told that a State Department official,” “I learned from multiple U.S. officials,” “One White House official described this act,” “Based on multiple readouts of these meetings recounted to me,” “I also learned from multiple U.S. officials,” “The U.S. officials characterized this meeting,” “multiple U.S. officials told me,” “I learned from U.S. officials,” “I also learned from a U.S. official,” “several U.S. officials told me,” “I heard from multiple U.S. officials,” and “multiple U.S. officials told me.”

The whistleblower filed the complaint after President Donald Trump asked Ukraine earlier this summer to assist the DOJ in its ongoing investigation into the origins of the 2016 Russia probe, and to find out if there was any illegal activity that took place when former Vice President Joe Biden threatened Ukraine to fire a prosecutor that was investigating his son’s company.

Trump released the following video on his Twitter account today that highlighted the allegations surrounding the Biden-Ukraine corruption scandal:

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