OLC Memo Says Whistleblower Complaint Not an ‘Urgent Concern,’ Hands it Over to Congress
Acting Director of National Intelligence will testify in front of the House and Senate on Thursday.
The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel determined that the whistleblower on the phone call with President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not present an “urgent concern” nor do officials have to hand over the account to Congress.
The intelligence community inspector general also discovered the whistleblower “showed indications of ‘political bias’ and was ‘in favor of a rival candidate'” of Trump’s.
Despite that conclusion, the House and Senate have the whistleblower’s account.
The whistleblower, who remains unknown, claimed that Trump may have violated “campaign-finance laws” during a phone call with Zelensky.
Based on hearsay, the whistleblower said Trump threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine if the country’s new prosecutor did not investigate Vice President Joe Biden, who urged Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shoklin over his investigation into Burisma Holdings. Hunter Biden, Joe’s son, sat on the board.
The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) reviewed the complaint, but found credibility even though they found “some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate.”
The ICIG forwarded the complaint to the DOJ. Those officials found that the “urgent concern” did not fall under the statute “because it does not concern ‘the funding, administration or operation of an intelligence activity’ under the authority of the DNI [Director of National Intelligence].”
Since it does not match the statute the DOJ does not have to hand over the whistleblower’s report to Congressional intelligence committees.
We learned this morning that Trump did not threaten Zelensky in any way if he did not investigate Biden. He suggested Zelensky, who happily agreed. During a press conference, Zelensky said no one pressured him to agree to the investigation.
Then news came out that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire threatened to resign if Trump’s administration stopped him from testifying before Congress on Thursday.
Axios also reported that the House and Senate received the whistleblower’s account at 4PM ET today.
DOJ Report on Alleged Whistleblower and Complaints Against President Trump by Legal Insurrection on Scribd
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Then news came out that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire threatened to resign if Trump’s administration stopped him from testifying before Congress on Thursday.”
And then, News came out that Maguire categorically denied this story. The original story, not surprisingly, was “anonymously sourced”.
Mary needs to remove that line as it never happened and is completely irrelevant to the entire story.
Witches, warlocks, and unearthing the Chamber’s planned babies sacraments, the president is still viable, and the nation is forced to player another trimester of whack-an-ass. Here’s to progress.
Whole thing looks scripted by Trump.
I was thinking Pocahontas Warren. She stands to gain the most, knowing that this whole thing will backfire onto Biden.
That’s true. #SheProgressed with Biden’s progress. Occam’s scalpel suggests that the woman who speaks with forked tongue is at least a first-order forcing behind the catastrophic anthropogenic Biden expose.
I would think Sanders, except Sanders wasn’t motivated enough to prevent Hillary from sandbagging him in ’16.
My first question is how can this be a “Whistleblower Complaint” when it is based completely on hearsay?
It’s not a whistleblower. The damnocrats use that term to make it sound better than “leaker of 3rd hand info”.
It should be called “gossip.”
We should have the name of the ‘whistleblower.’ I’m tired of miscreants hiding in the shadows. Come into the light.
No, there is a very valid reason for whistleblower protections. However, if you are determined to be making up falsehoods then you can also be prosecuted, especially if done under oath.
Besides, who looks bad in this scenario? Trump or the partisan hacks that jumped on this way too eagerly and now have egg on their faces?
the real bombshell is the behavior of the Intelligence Community Inspector General. It appears he is part of the deep state or worse. The DOJ concluded that he had no business at all calling this an Urgent Matter, and that it wasn’t even within the ICIG’s jurisdiction because the complaint didn’t involve elements conferring jurisdiction on him – the whale conversation was outside the Intelligence community work flow – it was a state department matter or white hose matter. If you read the DOJ report you will see that the DOJ effectively analogizes what the ICIG did to another case where similar reasoning was an ABUSE OF DISCRETION
Gave thumbs down by accident. Trump should fire the piece of garbage.
Limbaugh some time ago wondered if the “intelligence community” gave bogus info to Bush II about Iraq. Beginning to wonder what is the operational structure of Deep State…a true shadow government in the real shadows. Would there be a central committee and chain of command?
What’s there to testify to? Trump released the phone call, what can the DNI testify to? That he got an anonymous complaint from a guy who had no first hand knowledge. It’s all crap, blowing up in the democrats face.
technically speaking – the complaint is rumored to have more than one accusation
apparently the DOJ got it – saw it was political bullcrap – bumped it then it (somehow) got leaked to the media who ran that NYT story on it
Dems then just used it to push for a formal impeachment inquiry
yeah – you can’t make this shit up (lol)
Hope they fire the “whistleblower”. Having no first hand knowledge shows an attempt to harm politically.
Really, our country would be better off if Trump could just shut down all intelligence agencies.
Military can handle the intelligence as needed for our protection and they will do a much better job.
The CIA was created out of military intelligence at the end of WWII, you can thank FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover for his desire to gain more power than he already usurped for first shutting down the OSS because the President didn’t think things through, then regretted his move almost immediately. The other issue was the military infighting over who controlled intelligence operations, even though OSS operated separately.
The FBI and CIA as well as the whole HSA have overstepped their bounds and have become overly political. Most of that is because the heads of them are highly political in order to become appointed.
Obama created a means to weaponize them, and many highly placed personnel are far too political in their nature.
Rebuilding them is needed, and maybe they should be forced to being apolitical as much as possible. It’s a tough nut to crack, and they have been tremendously harmed by the prior regime. I’m not sure they can be fixed, but the military might not be the best replacement option either.
Yes, I know the history.
While the military is not the perfect venue, I’d rather have turf wars than wars against the president elected by Americans.
At this point in time, they do far more damage than they do good. Get rid of it. You can get rid of the FBI as well.
I like the subtext of the whistleblower complaint bit paraphrased:
“Look under normal circumstances, we would never turn over a whistleblower report to the House and Senate. We don’t have to. But this one is so full of crap that we might as well dump it on them. They deserve it.”
NeverTrumper Chastain is parroting the “whistleblower” lie. There is no whistleblower. Only a gossip.
“Then news came out that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire threatened to resign if Trump’s administration stopped him from testifying before Congress on Thursday.”
I knew this was a lie as soon as it came out in the paper of lies, the WP.
Mary, why have you not learned the WP routinely makes stuff up?
The entire “whistleblower” report/complaint was written by a commie cabal. All that is required is to read the damn thing and you know it is not the product of a concerned employee.
It’s all contrived and corrupt.