Posted on 10/07/2019 7:57:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Deep State has been after President Trump from the before his presidency, and its latest trick has been in orchestrating a rules change to ensure that any deep-stater can come forward with secondhand information, as a "whistleblower.
It's supposedly to ensure that wrongdoing bruited about at the spy agency water coolers gets into the hands of authorities. Problem one: Spy agencies don't do water cooler talk.
But politics is always a topic, so now we have one or two leakers from the ranks of the still-embittered Deep State, taking the cover of 'whistleblower' as a result of that rules change, with a string of unsubstantiated secondhand information.
Sean Davis at the Federalist has been doing a yeoman's job of ferreting out this leaks-as-whistles con job, with the first report that the rules allowing secondhand stories to go into whistleblower filings were mysteriously changed just in time for the first whistleblower to come forward, supposedly in August.
Now he reports that it gets worse. Davis reports that it turns out the rules weren't changed in August, they were changed in September, and the watchdog agency, the Intelligence Community Inspector General (IGIC) backdated that rules change.
In tense testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on Friday, the inspector general for federal spy agencies refused to disclose why his office backdated secret changes to key whistleblower forms and rules in the wake of an anti-Trump whistleblower complaint filed in August, sources told The Federalist.
As The Federalist reported and the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) confirmed, the spy watchdog secretly changed its whistleblower forms and internal rules in September to eliminate a requirement that whistleblowers provide first-hand evidence to support any allegations of wrongdoing.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
RE: First hand knowledge isn’t required for a whistleblower report under the law.
So, you are saying that the back dating is simply a form adjustment to fit the pre-existing US Code?
If this was simply a clerical error, then all the IC IG should say is this — “It was an oversight in the form, what I did was not a malicious attempt at backdating it, but to correct/adjust the form’s mistake”.
I don't know about back dating one way or the other.
I do know that it doesn't matter in this case because the whistleblower used the old form that had been in place since May 2018.
Despite all of the innuendo I haven't seen Davis or any Comgresspeople dispute this.
Davis does dispute the claim that First hand knowledge is not required to be a whistleblower by providing this link I posted in Post #43 above.
Edit to add: Unless the Whistleblower DID clain to have first hand information.
But *IF* the Whistleblower did claim to have first hand information, how does his claim square with the transcript of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky?
Where is the quid-pro-quo in the exchange? Unless of course, there are other exchanges that the Whistleblower was privy to that we do not yet know of...
If so, where’s the evidence suck other exchanges? Are they forthcoming?
RE: the whistleblower used the old form that had been in place since May 2018.
Well, if he did, and as Davis reported, the form was adjusted to make it compatible with an existing requirement, all Atkinson had to do is tell the Republicans, “I simply made an adjustment to the May 2018 form to make it reflect the original law.” or something to that effect. Did he?
As MortMan posted in 33 above, there was a first-hand standard for the ICIG to forward the complaint to Congress but not for the WB to make the complaint, which is the part governed by statute.
Once again, it's moot because the IG determined that the WB did have direct knowledge.
It's all in the ICIG statement you just linked.
Bttt.
5.56mm
RE: the IG determined that the WB did have direct knowledge.
OK, let’s say that I agreed with everything you just said ( which I don’t yet ).
The issue then becomes the “Direct Knowledge” that the ICIC claimed the WB has.
We already have the transcripts of the exchange with Zelensky. It showed NO QUID-PRO-QUO. Nothing impeachable as I read it. If that is NOT what the ICIG is referring to, what “Direct Knowledge” other then the one in the transcript does this Whistleblower have and why is that other knowledge ( if it exists ) not being made public?
Democrats are taking a leaf out of old KGB handbook....
If we trace this one back ... and back ... and back... we might find some of the folks running the main cell...
He did. Read the ICIG statement.
Where is the quid-pro-quo in the exchange?
I don't know but that's an issue for Congress, not the whistleblower or the IG.
RE: He did. Read the ICIG statement.
OK he did. But WHAT first hand knowledge?
We can all say that we now have first hand knowledge since the transcript was released.
So, if THAT transcript is NOT what the whistleblower was referring to when he claimed first hand knowledge, what OTHER thing is he referring to and why don’t we know about it? ( does it even exist ? ).
From the complaint released, which I believe was the form released to congress, there were NO first-hand items. The fact that the ICIG claims to have found first hand knowledge is unsupported by the evidence on record, which is the major issue I have had with your acceptance of the assertion at face value, FRiend.
If only the defendant in an accusation is required to present actual evidence, there is no justice, and there must be no acceptance.
so did they go through proper procedures to change the form?
Furthermore, The embattled ICIG also admitted last Friday that the anti-Trump complainant lied on his whistleblower complaint form by concealing the complainant’s previous secret interactions with House Democratic staff prior to submitting the complaint.
Atkinson never even bothered investigating potential coordination between the complainant, whom DOJ said showed evidence of partisan political bias, and House Democrats prior to the filing of the anti-Trump complaint.
I don't know what the IG found, only what he says. It's an official statement from a Trump appointee but he could be lying.
My issue has always been with Davis and the politicians who play us for fools. This whole changed form narrative has been a distraction.
No one disputes that the WB used the old form.
I don't know but it doesn't matter. The whistleblower used the old form.
They're trying to manipulate you.
Thank you for discussing the substance of my post and not disputing it based on some esoteric concern.
I do not recall any evidence I have seen that the ICIG was correct in finding first hand knowledge. The statute requires such for an “urgent concern” where the complaint goes to congress. Further, POTUS is not covered under the ICIG mandate, meaning that the complaint should have been rejected out of hand.
I find no way to reconcile these facts (as established by the ICIG’s own reporting) with the ICIG’s mission and mandate.
The complaint, and any further such complaints, are fruit of the poisoned tree, as far as I can see.
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