It struck me as typical subservience to authority and post-hoc rationalization. He took the complaint about Trump to Trump, not to the committee, because that’s what good soldiers do. He let Trump kill the complaint with tortured, self-serving reasoning and sat on his hands like good soldiers do. Now that he has been caught, he says he was just following orders.
Yes, precisely.
robc04
4400
I guess I didn’t see it that way.
robc04
4401
I’ll be interested to hear what others here think about it, because I just saw it as someone trying to follow procedure.
Doesn’t the procedure — the law — require him to inform the intelligence committees about the complaint?
kerzain
4403
I saw it as someone who had no idea what to do, wanted advice from someone who probably knew better, and didn’t think too deeply about the implication of taking accusations of misconduct directly to the office supposedly involved in said misconduct.
robc04
4404
It didn’t sound like this complaint fell under the rules that require the complaint to be given to congress within the 7 or 10 day period.
That’s the post-hoc rationalization. Here’s an explanation of the law:
Within a 14-day period, the IG must determine “whether the complaint or information appears credible,” and upon finding the information to be credible, thereafter transfer the information to the head of the agency. The law then requires the DNI (or the relevant agency head) to forward the complaint to the congressional intelligence committees, along with any comments he wishes to make about the complaint, within seven days.
And here is the actual text. It doesn’t look ambiguous to me.
SEC. 702. PROTECTION OF INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY EMPLOYEES WHO REPORT URGENT CONCERNS TO CONGRESS.
(a) INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Subsection (d) of section 17 of the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 (50 U.S.C. 403q) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
‘‘(5)(A) An employee of the Agency, or of a contractor to the
Agency, who intends to report to Congress a complaint or informa- tion with respect to an urgent concern may report such complaint or information to the Inspector General.
‘‘(B) Not later than the end of the 14-calendar day period beginning on the date of receipt from an employee of a complaint or information under subparagraph (A), the Inspector General shall determine whether the complaint or information appears credible. If the Inspector General determines that the complaint or informa- tion appears credible, the Inspector General shall, before the end of such period, transmit the complaint or information to the Direc- tor.
‘‘© Upon receipt of a transmittal from the Inspector General under subparagraph (B), the Director shall, within 7 calendar days of such receipt, forward such transmittal to the intelligence commit- tees, together with any comments the Director considers appro- priate.
dtolman
4406
In that case, as per the law, he should have given the whistleblower secure contact information. Only the IG was given authorization to decide the matters of fact. The DNI took up extralegal responsibilities when he contacted the White House.
Matt_W
4407
Isn’t he the Director of National Intelligence? He’s not a naif wandering his way through Washington politics with a bewildered expression on his face. He is in charge of the entire intelligence gathering apparatus of government. If he doesn’t know the right thing to do in this situation, he’s completely and totally incompetent.
robc04
4408
But isn’t part of the argument that this wasn’t an ‘urgent concern’ according to the rules set?
Yes, that’s the post-hoc rationalization, but that determination should be and was made by the IG. If the law just said ‘concern’, and not ‘urgent concern’, you could argue that it wasn’t a ‘concern’, too. If the law said ‘complaint’, you could argue this isn’t a ‘complaint’. You can argue anything you want about words. Words are funny things! But such arguments are tendentious. There isn’t an ounce of doubt here: Maguire took the report to the White House so that they could decide whether to kill it or not.
vyshka
4410
I thought the IG determines that, said it was in fact urgent, and the problem is they decided to disagree with the IG assessment, which isn’t something the law says they can do.
antlers
4411
The DNI says that he didn’t think the complaint implicated members of the IC. Since it did implicate people besides the president (in covering up the transcript) I don’t think that was the right call. He was doing narrow legalistic ass-covering because the politics of the situation didn’t come out as he anticipated.
kerzain
4412
Oh, you probably don’t realize that I consider all Trump appointees as unqualified morons. Every opinion I form of them and their actions begins from that base line.
Matt_W
4413
Oh I agree, but any testimony he gives has to start from the baseline: “Director Maguire is the head of the National Intelligence Program and the heads of every intelligence agency in the country, including the CIA, the OIC, the NSA, the DIA, the NRO, etc all answer to him.” Even if he’s a moron, he needs to be held accountable as someone who holds that position.
Skipper
4415
He didn’t though. He -thought- for some reason of his own, that executive privilege may be involved. This is after the IG forwarded it to him as, “credible.” His job as soon as that happened was to forward it to congress. It was not to attempt to interpret if it fell within executive privilege.
And that’s really the heart of the problem. He did not have to forward it to the Office of Legal Council. He did not need to notify the President or the White House.
Think of how this would have worked if the whistleblower’s subject was about an intel person who did something wrong and someone else blew the whistle. Do you think those two steps above would have been done (OLC or WH?) No. And that’s the issue. Especially so because of the subject of the whistleblower complaint.
That’s how I understood it.
robc04
4417
OK, I didn’t realize it was the IG who has all authority to determine whether it is an urgent concern. I assumed the DNI had the authority to make sure things were being done correctly since he’s top dog. By correctly, I mean that what the IG says is an urgent concern is really an urgent concern according to the rules. If it violates the rules for the DNI to do that, than I agree he didn’t follow procedure.
I thought Schiff was very pointed and effective throughout the hearing today.
