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Trump Administration Whistleblower Cover-Up

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  • 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.
    Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
    But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
    Than a fool in the eyes of God


    From "Fools Gold" by Petra

    Comment


    • 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.”
      "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

      Comment


      • 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/
        Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
        But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
        Than a fool in the eyes of God


        From "Fools Gold" by Petra

        Comment


        • 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.
          That's what
          - She

          Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
          - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

          I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
          - Stephen R. Donaldson

          Comment


          • 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.
            That's what
            - She

            Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
            - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

            I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
            - Stephen R. Donaldson

            Comment


            • 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

              That's what
              - She

              Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
              - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

              I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
              - Stephen R. Donaldson

              Comment


              • 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.
                "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                Comment


                • 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?
                  Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                  MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                  MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                  seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                  Comment


                  • 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
                    That's what
                    - She

                    Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                    - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                    I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                    - Stephen R. Donaldson

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Roy View Post
                      Yes, even then.

                      Unless you can find a clause in the relevant statute that makes this exception?
                      What law or statute is he accused of breaking?

                      **Edit to ad** Biden running for President does not make him any more immune to legal scrutiny. To quote Pelosi... "No one should be above the law."
                      That's what
                      - She

                      Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                      - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                      I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                      - Stephen R. Donaldson

                      Comment


                      • The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” column hit House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) with four Pinocchios Friday for falsely claiming that his panel had “not spoken directly” with the partisan CIA officer behind a so-called “whistleblower” complaint about President Donald Trump.

                        https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/...t-false-claim/

                        Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                        But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                        Than a fool in the eyes of God


                        From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
                          What law or statute is he accused of breaking?
                          52 USC 30121(a): It shall be unlawful for a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value from a foreign national in connection with a Federal, State, or local election.

                          I can't find any exception if the solicitation concerns acts of fraud.

                          Can you?

                          Also, how did you know there was such an exception without knowing which statue it was an exception to?
                          **Edit to ad** Biden running for President does not make him any more immune to legal scrutiny. To quote Pelosi... "No one should be above the law."
                          What law or statue is Biden suspected of breaking?
                          Last edited by Roy; 10-04-2019, 11:11 AM.
                          Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                          MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                          MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                          seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
                            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.



                            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

                            Always helpful to actually read the statutes you're bold-texting cherry-picked clauses from. In this instance, just reading the link you provided would showcase the congressional intent:

                            Source: https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/105th-congress/house-report/747

                            Purpose of the Bill

                            H.R. 3829, ``Intelligence Community Whistleblower
                            Protection Act of 1998'' (ICWPA), establishes a new and
                            additional means by which employees of the Intelligence
                            Community (IC) may report to the intelligence committees
                            classified information about wrongdoing.
                            * This bill is intended
                            to protect employees from reprisal and to ensure the proper
                            handling of classified documents and information in the process
                            of reporting wrongdoing. By establishing this additional and
                            protected process, H.R. 3829 is intended to promote the
                            reporting of information to the intelligence committees, which
                            the committees need to perform effectively their oversight
                            role.

                            © Copyright Original Source



                            You would also find this section relatively quickly:

                            Source: Ibid.

                            (6) to encourage such reporting, an additional procedure
                            should be established that provides a means for such employees
                            and contractors to report to Congress while safeguarding the
                            classified information involved in such reporting.

                            © Copyright Original Source



                            And you might also be struck by the use of the word "may" numerous times in reference to reporting to the ICIG. Classified information must lawfully pass through ICWPA in order to avoid other laws against disclosure of classified information but nothing in ICWPA says that an employee must contact ICIG with allegations that do not contain classified information before making those allegations to another party.

                            As I'm frequently saying, gotta be able to both read and understand the legal stuff if you're wanting to make a legal argument ... especially one that's contradicted by the people in charge of enforcing the statute!

                            --Sam

                            *Emphasis added
                            "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
                              What law or statute is he accused of breaking?

                              **Edit to ad** Biden running for President does not make him any more immune to legal scrutiny. To quote Pelosi... "No one should be above the law."

                              The same people making this argument now on the basis of absolutely no evidence other than speculation decry every attempt to investigate, say, Trump's tax returns as a partisan witch hunt, despite copious circumstantial evidence of criminal behavior.

                              --Sam
                              "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Sam View Post
                                What campaign finance violation was the Obama campaign found to have made?
                                Seriously? His campaign was found guilty of massive campaign financing violations and had to pay one of the largest fines ever issued against a presidential campaign by the FEC -- $375,000.

                                What sort of comparable fines have been levied against Trump or his campaign.

                                And here's something for you to mull over. Why do you think that there is such a startling difference?

                                I'm always still in trouble again

                                "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                                "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                                "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                                Comment

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