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Trump Administration Whistleblower Cover-Up

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  • Bill the Cat
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    As we already established earlier, the ICWPA does not actually contain protections against retaliation for whistleblowers. PPD-19 was created much later to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. What ICWPA does is define a lawful process for the sharing of classified information contained in a whistleblower complaint.
    Simply false. How many times must I repeat myself? The ICWPA and subsequent PPD-19 deal with ALL whistleblower information from the Intelligence Community, not just classified information. Hence the bolded part "OR OTHERWISE" in the report from Congress on the inception of the Act. The Intelligence Community lacked their own whistleblower process, so the ICWPA was drafted and passed. PPD-19 added protections for the whistleblower to the Act.

    So either legislators wrote a law that completely omitted their express intent for writing the law (weird!) or you are, again, wrong.
    I literally QUOTED the report and the site I retrieved it from. What the hell do you think "classified OR OTHERWISE" means?

    :snip:ped your irrelevant tripe

    Leave a comment:


  • Roy
    replied
    Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
    While technically a campaign finance law, the statute violated in this instance isn't really concerned with finance, but with foreign influence.

    Asking the governor of Florida to investigate your political opponents is legal.
    Asking the governor of Jamaica to investigate your political opponents is illegal.
    Not if your "political opponents" are suspected of committing fraud in their country.
    Yes, even then.

    Unless you can find a clause in the relevant statute that makes this exception?

    Leave a comment:


  • Sam
    replied
    As we already established earlier, the ICWPA does not actually contain protections against retaliation for whistleblowers. PPD-19 was created much later to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. What ICWPA does is define a lawful process for the sharing of classified information contained in a whistleblower complaint.

    So either legislators wrote a law that completely omitted their express intent for writing the law (weird!) or you are, again, wrong.

    But, hey -- Trump managed to get an AG in William Barr who led DOJ straight into a rare brush-back by a grand jury in seeking an indictment of Andy McCabe. So maybe Trump & Barr can team up and test out your interpretation.

    --Sam

    Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
    The original Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 excluded employees of the intelligence community from its protections against retaliation. To remedy this exclusion, Congress in 1998 passed the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act



    Nope. They were fixing a loophole that left an entire community out.



    Indeed. The history does show us what the compromise was about:

    Source: https://www.lawfareblog.com/mysterious-whistleblower-complaint-what-adam-schiff-talking-about


    The fact that the whistleblower complaint or information went through the agency head rather than directly to Congress from the whistleblower represented another such compromise. The report concluded:


    The committee believes that it must have access to those employees of the [intelligence community] who are aware of information, classified or otherwise, exposing corruption, mismanagement, or waste within their agencies or elements. The committee's statutorily established oversight responsibilities cannot be effectively carried out if employees are required to obtain the approval of the heads of their agency before exposing wrongdoing, mismanagement, or waste. H.R. 3829 as reported is an effort to accommodate the critical interests of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs and still accomplish that legislative mandate.

    © Copyright Original Source



    So, again, you are wrong. It did not have to do with SPECIFICALLY classified information.

    Leave a comment:


  • Bill the Cat
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    Yes, true -- what I'm referring to, though, is that Trump has already been directly implicated in a felony campaign finance reform case brought to court by SDNY ("Individual-1" in the Stormy Daniels payment).
    Since Trump had a history of paying off people for their silence, this can not be reclassified as a campaign finance violation. Past precedent shows he would have paid her off even had he not run for office. Ergo, proving it was a campaign finance violation would be exceedingly impossible.

    So Trump, unlike Obama, personally directed a direct, felonious (successful!) attempt to illegally affect his election and we don't even have to get into the suddenly-shifting sand of whether asking foreign countries to feed election assistance is a bad thing.

    --Sam
    Source: https://verdict.justia.com/2019/01/04/trump-hush-payment-to-stormy-daniels-likely-does-not-violate-election-law


    At a minimum, it is simply not clear that President Trump violated election laws in using his money to pay off an individual who otherwise might have revealed a previous sexual affair with him. FEC regulations make clear that a candidate may make unlimited contributions and unlimited expenditures from his own funds.

    © Copyright Original Source

    Leave a comment:


  • Bill the Cat
    replied
    Originally posted by Roy View Post
    While technically a campaign finance law, the statute violated in this instance isn't really concerned with finance, but with foreign influence.

    Asking the governor of Florida to investigate your political opponents is legal.
    Asking the governor of Jamaica to investigate your political opponents is illegal.
    Not if your "political opponents" are suspected of committing fraud in their country.

    Leave a comment:


  • Bill the Cat
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    Good practice for y'all:

    Ask yourself "Why was this law enacted?"

    The original Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 excluded employees of the intelligence community from its protections against retaliation. To remedy this exclusion, Congress in 1998 passed the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act

    Was Congress trying to gag people from coming forward with allegations of abuse? Was it trying to make sure that IC employees couldn't share even non-classified information with people outside the IC? Or was Congress trying to fix a loophole in whistleblower protection laws that didn't take classified information into account?
    Nope. They were fixing a loophole that left an entire community out.

    If the former: you might have an argument regarding this case (but would still run afoul of 1A)

    If the latter: there is no argument to be made and it's just a bad reading of the law from the start

    (Hint: the legislative history shows that it's the latter)

    --Sam
    Indeed. The history does show us what the compromise was about:

    Source: https://www.lawfareblog.com/mysterious-whistleblower-complaint-what-adam-schiff-talking-about


    The fact that the whistleblower complaint or information went through the agency head rather than directly to Congress from the whistleblower represented another such compromise. The report concluded:


    The committee believes that it must have access to those employees of the [intelligence community] who are aware of information, classified or otherwise, exposing corruption, mismanagement, or waste within their agencies or elements. The committee's statutorily established oversight responsibilities cannot be effectively carried out if employees are required to obtain the approval of the heads of their agency before exposing wrongdoing, mismanagement, or waste. H.R. 3829 as reported is an effort to accommodate the critical interests of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs and still accomplish that legislative mandate.

    © Copyright Original Source



    So, again, you are wrong. It did not have to do with SPECIFICALLY classified information.

    Leave a comment:


  • Mountain Man
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
    Um... Schiff admitted it.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...-it-was-filed/

    Leave a comment:


  • Sam
    replied
    Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
    You're right, it's more than just a rumor at this point. We know for a fact that Shifty Schiff had direct contact with the whistleblower and was given details of the complaint prior to the whistleblower going to the IG.

    “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

    Leave a comment:


  • Mountain Man
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    "rumored to"
    You're right, it's more than just a rumor at this point. We know for a fact that Shifty Schiff had direct contact with the whistleblower and was given details of the complaint prior to the whistleblower going to the IG.

    Leave a comment:


  • Sam
    replied
    Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
    Apparently the "the law is all about" something that nobody ever bothered to put into writing. And your inability to cite any legal precedent for the current situation answers my question.

    As for the whistleblower, yes, he did eventually go the IG but only after he spilled the beans to Schiff who is rumored to have helped him write the complaint, so still a clear violation of the law.
    "rumored to"

    Leave a comment:


  • Sam
    replied
    Originally posted by Roy View Post
    While technically a campaign finance law, the statute violated in this instance isn't really concerned with finance, but with foreign influence.

    Asking the governor of Florida to investigate your political opponents is legal.
    Asking the governor of Jamaica to investigate your political opponents is illegal.
    Yes, true -- what I'm referring to, though, is that Trump has already been directly implicated in a felony campaign finance reform case brought to court by SDNY ("Individual-1" in the Stormy Daniels payment).

    So Trump, unlike Obama, personally directed a direct, felonious (successful!) attempt to illegally affect his election and we don't even have to get into the suddenly-shifting sand of whether asking foreign countries to feed election assistance is a bad thing.

    --Sam

    Leave a comment:


  • lilpixieofterror
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    What campaign finance violation was the Obama campaign found to have made?

    What campaign finance violation was Trump personally found to have directed?

    Among the numerous differences, the wording above gives a clue why the situations are not equal.

    --Sam
    All you got to do is search ‘Obama violated campaign finance laws’ to see that it really happened.

    Leave a comment:


  • Roy
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    What campaign finance violation was Trump personally found to have directed?
    While technically a campaign finance law, the statute violated in this instance isn't really concerned with finance, but with foreign influence.

    Asking the governor of Florida to investigate your political opponents is legal.
    Asking the governor of Jamaica to investigate your political opponents is illegal.

    Leave a comment:


  • Mountain Man
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    Well, then it's a good thing the whistleblower went through the ICIG!

    The whistleblower never took the complaint to Congress, as outlined i the statute.

    If you're trying to argue that the ICWPA doesn't deal with employees handling classified information in an abuse complaint, you are showcasing a rather incredible ignorance of what the law was all about.

    --Sam
    Apparently the "the law is all about" something that nobody ever bothered to put into writing. And your inability to cite any legal precedent for the current situation answers my question.

    As for the whistleblower, yes, he did eventually go the IG but only after he spilled the beans to Schiff who is rumored to have helped him write the complaint, so still a clear violation of the law.

    Leave a comment:


  • Sam
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    Nor any of those nominated by their parties over the past several decades.
    What campaign finance violation was the Obama campaign found to have made?

    What campaign finance violation was Trump personally found to have directed?

    Among the numerous differences, the wording above gives a clue why the situations are not equal.

    --Sam

    Leave a comment:

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