Free Republic

Was the ‘nonpartisan’ Congressional Research Service weaponized to force the House into a premature impeachment inquiry? Sean Davis wrote Friday about a secret update to the intelligence community inspector general’s “Disclosure of Urgent Concern” complaint intake form. It revamped the procedure to allow hearsay complaints, while prior versions of the form had included an admonishment that the IC IG could not find a complaint credible without “reliable, first-hand information.” While it appears the IC IG has the statutory right to promulgate new procedures, the rationale for the change and the curious nature of the timing has still not been shared....

The intelligence community between May 2018 and August 2019 secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings, according to a bombshell report on Friday by The Federalist. The report by The Federalist’s Sean Davis raises questions about the intelligence community’s role amid a whistleblower complaint submitted against President Trump in August 2019, alleging he acted improperly when asking the president of Ukraine to assist in investigations into the origins of the Russia collusion allegations and alleged wrongdoing by Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Davis’s report said a new whistleblower complaint form did not require potential...

Should Congress have been allowed to force the release of classified information and foreign policy secrets by manipulating the whistleblower laws in the first place? As the core allegations in the anti-Trump whistleblower complaint continue to unravel, it is becoming clear House Democrats are willing to dismiss the rule of law to sully President Trump with impeachment ahead of the 2020 elections. Their pattern of weaponizing unsubstantiated allegations for political hit jobs because they play well in the media’s scandal-driven 24-hour news cycle is symptomatic of wider dysfunction. Lost in the recent arguments about the extent to which the intelligence...

The intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings, raising questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. 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...