In a continuing failure to respect the spirit and letter of the whistle-blower law, President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was “trying to find out” the identity of the whistle-blower who accused him of using military aid to pressure a foreign government to investigate his political rival. Once again, there is no need for such a highly inappropriate effort. This is part of an impeachment inquiry, and the witness is likely to appear before Congress. However, the whistle-blower law — and good policy — protects the identity of such staff members. Trump previously had compared the whistle-blower to a spy — an accusation that was clearly threatening and improper.
Once again, this is only magnifying the impeachment risk for Trump. It is also wrong both legally and ethically. One may disagree with the whistle-blower, and one can investigate any political bias as part of the impeachment process. However, even Trump’s Director of National Intelligence said that the staffer did the right thing in filing the complaint. He also said that his identity is protected.
The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 was created to protect federal workers from precisely this type of harassment or threat. 5 U.S.C. § 2302 (b)(8)-(9) prohibits “a personnel action” against an employee who makes “any disclosure of information” which the employee “reasonably believes” to show “any violation of any law, rule, or regulation.” That includes a prohibition of any form of retaliation for the “the exercise of any appeal, complaint, or grievance right granted by any law, rule, or regulation,” including “cooperating with or disclosing information to the Inspector General.”
As with the Special Counsel investigation, Trump is magnifying the risks and prolonging the process with these statements and actions. It is possible to counterpunch yourself into an impeachment and even into removal from office if you try hard enough.
Trump doesn’t believe laws apply to him and to date he’s bee right. It’s time for this to end.
This CIA Gator is no whistle-blower; he’s a gossip blower.
What did he get wrong, Mespo?
Natacha:
“What did he get wrong, Mespo?”
*****************
The same thing every hearsay “witness” gets wrong — about everything from tone to content. A game of telephone anyone?
The Inspector General found the complaint to be meritorious. AND…it need not be entirely based on first-hand information. That is a Fox News talking point from the White House. Anyway, everything the whistleblower said has proven true, and he didn’t have the transcript.
Natacha Boozalot,
That’s the IG that’s an Unlawful Enemy Combatant that attempted to fake changing the Law regarding who is a Whistleblower isn’t it.
Any law that empowers people to level accusations from the shadows is, in my view, constitutionally repugnant. Even mafia assassins, whose job is to kill people, have a right to face their accusers. As far as I’m concerned, the President and others in government should have the same rights. I say this while acknowledging that it would scare many into keeping silent, but that’s a trade-off we’ve made to protect the rights of the accused. Therefore, I do not expect the President or anyone else to surrender their rights by respecting the spirit of a law that flies in the face of constitutional principles and traditions.
He will get his chance at trial to confront his accuser just like any other criminal.
He may or may not get his chance at trial after he is slimed. They may not impeach.
This is a non-political mistake by the Democrats since it will have bad repercussions down the road for all Presidents and therefore for the nation.
Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help in establishing his sliminess. He’s been a crook and grafter his entire pathetic life. If you don’t believe me, check court dockets. And…where did you get the idea that the “Democrats” put the whistleblower up to filing this complaint? Once it was filed, Congress has to act, which they are doing. The majority of the American people support this investigation. The Transcript completely supports the whistleblower. Today, it is revealed that Pompeo listened in, knew about the call, and played little games with Martha Radditz of ABC when she asked him about it. He responded by saying he hadn’t read the entire complaint because he was too busy, never mentioning that he was in on the call.
More Kellyanne pivoting: the “issue” is poor Trumpy Bear getting slimed by those bad Democrats. No. The issue is a crook and grafter who cheated to get into the White House by colluding with a hostile foreign government and who is trying to do the same thing again by leveraging military aid appropriated by Congress in exchange for a different foreign government ginning up lies about his presumed opponent. Trump has “bad repercussions down the road” for this country. Resign already.
which court documents? he’s been a party to over ten thousand lawsuits
you don’t have the faintest conception of what life is like for somebody managing a lot of complicated businesses, do you?
and guys like that don’t resign because ants down in the anthill say so.
I have represented businesses, and in complex litigation, but they aren’t cheats like Trump. What is the gist of a large number of these suits? Trump’s MO is to: 1. enter into an agreement for goods or services at a set price; 2. obtain the goods or services; 3. refuse to pay, not for any valid or legitimate reason; and then 4. “negotiate” for a lower price. It costs the contractor more in attorney fees to fight him than to capitulate, so he gets his way and then crows about what a great dealmaker he is. A consistent pattern of such behavior constitutes fraud and bad faith because he enters into agreements with no intention of honoring his agreement to pay the agreed-upon fee. There’s nothing complex about it. He has done this so many times that people and companies no longer want to do business with him. Then, there’s the multiple bankruptcies. That, too, isn’t complicated. He overextends himself. He’s a bad businessman. Up to his mid-forties, he was supported by his father, who bailed him out all of the time. He started “The Apprentice” because he was flat broke. He has had to turn to the Russians and Saudis to borrow money because US banks don’t want to do business with him.
Correction as to the noun in the above post: it should be “grifter”, not “grafter”.
“Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help in establishing his sliminess.”
Natacha, you don’t know what you are talking about. All you do is repeat the same garbage. Much of it old and much of it solidly disproven. The rest is gossip and made cr-p. I don’t bother listening or reading what you have to say for I have seen it all before and you wouldn’t know what is real and what is false.
A waste of time.
“non-political” still stupid.
What the devil would you care about what was done? You don’t have enough common sense to recognize the dangers that have been created.
The president has a right to face his accuser at trial. That can’t happen fast enough for me.
What protections and from what? I think statutory law does not preempt the 6th amendment right to confront your accuser. Is some goon Clinton squad going to make the “whistleblower” disappear? Wrong team buddy.
I know the names of the whistle blowers for the Ted Steven’s trial and Fast and Furious.
why wasn’t ex-US Attorney Dennis Burke charged under 5 U.S.C. § 2302 (b)(8)-(9) for leaking sensitive documents about ATF agent and whistleblower John Dodson?
Once again, there is no need for such a highly inappropriate effort.
Why is there ‘no need’ and why is it ‘inappropriate’? Just about every other column you write on the President is a complaint that (1) he’s not behaving as if he were some lawyer’s bitc* or (2) he did something that contravenes your prissy sensibilities. This would be less unimpressive if you were irritated by some genuinely egregious characters (e.g. Hunter Biden, Peter Sztrok, or Adam Schiff).
https://www.memeworld.com/meme/keep-america-great/
So here is another thing to think about. What happens to our resident shills when the DNC/TPTB decide to toss Joe Biden overboard and support somebody else??? That ought to be a hoot watching Anon1 and Hill and Natacha have to switch tracks and admit Joe Biden was hinky.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Ha ha ha.
I’m recalling a Czech writer who placed an article in either The New York Review of Books or The New Republic around about 1990 who said that after 1965 the regime’s blather was adhered to only by mentally-disabled people and ‘a certain sort of people’ [i.e. those on the make]. Seems quite familiar.
In the community outhouse at our marina there was a chaulk board on the wall with the topic ItShay List . Several people wrote in different people or companies. CNN, MSNBC, Chuck Todd, billy Buttwipe aka Whistleblower,, biden and Trump.
“Intelligence head said that the staffer did the right thing in filing the complaint.”
It would have been more appropriate for Turley to have said the staffer didn’t do anything illegal in his filing of the complaint but if it was political then what the staffer did, though possibly legal, was wrong .
One wonders why the rules of whistleblowers not having to have first hand information was gotten rid of under the Trump administration very quietly. This action impacts all administrations and seems to have been used to promote the aims of one party over another.
I would like to see “whistle blower” defined in a statute. Truman talks with Churchill about dropping and atomic bomb on Japan. A Japanese American citizen who was not locked up in a concentration camp got ahold of the infor. he worked in the radio department of a news network. He reveals the iformation. The Japs learn of this and re-bomb Pearl Harbor.
Some one needs to blow the whistle on the whistleblower and reveal his identity and political affiliation and names of his or her cross dressed accomplices.
This is all of a piece with Trump charging Assange, a publisher, with violating the espionage act. Trump has no respect for the rule of law. Like Obama and Bush and Clinton etc. each of these “leaders” has readily abrogated our Constitution. They have collectively killed off our Constitution and decimated our rights.
The American people keep letting this happen because they they feel justified in allowing their favored person(s) to violate the law. This must stop. I hope that every person will write Trump and tell him to back off– now. We can only bring back what is best about our nation by supporting our own Constitution. There can be no exceptions for people we like. If rights are violated, speak up now. It’s almost past the point where you will be able to do so and only the most obsequious governmental authoritarians will be able to “speak” (for their dog biscuit!).
Jill, a huge pop of Trump supporters are very piss at Trump over his treatment of Assange.
I don’t know who Trump’s advisers are but he might should Fire their azzes as with this Assange issue.
Remember what Assange posted? “Shouldn’t have brought their kids to a gunfight”.
But I guess everyone in DC like Turley thinks War is funny & is just a game where someone else is harmed.
and more hypocrisy! “After many years of carefully refusing to launch a single campaign in support of brave whistleblowers who faced vicious prosecution during the Obama administration—including Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake and Edward Snowden, and CIA whistleblowers John Kiriakou and Jeffrey Sterling—MoveOn.org has just cherrypicked a whistleblowing hero it can support.”
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-democratic-party-couldnt-care-less-about-whistleblowers/
Write the WH now. Show him we are the people who value the Constitution and the rights of others.
Despite Turley & others understanding of Law N Order & being Unlawful Enemy Combatants, Alex Jones’ head hasn’t exploded… Yet. LOL;)
https://www.memeworld.com/meme/alex-jones-vs-eddie-bravo-animated/
This person has a great take on whistleblower vs. spy question:
“A mysterious stranger from the lying, torturing, propagandizing, drug trafficking, assassinating, coup-staging, warmongering, psychopathic CIA was working in the White House, heroically provided the political/media class with politically powerful information out of the goodness of his heart, and then vanished off into the Langley sunset. Clearly there is nothing suspicious about this story at all.
In all seriousness, even to call this spook a “whistleblower” is ridiculous on its face. You don’t get to call someone from the US intelligence community a whistleblower unless they are actually whistleblowing on the US intelligence community. That’s not a thing. A CIA officer who exposes information about government officials is an operative performing an operation unless proven otherwise, because that’s what the CIA does; it liberally leaks information wherever it’s convenient for CIA agendas while withholding all other information behind a veil of government secrecy.
A CIA officer who exposes information about CIA wrongdoings without the CIA’s permission is a whistleblower. A CIA officer who exposes information about someone else is just a spook doing spook things. You can recognize the latter by the way the mass media supports, applauds and employs them. You can recognize the former by the way they have been persecuted, imprisoned, and/or died under mysterious circumstances.”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/09/27/msm-defends-cias-whistleblower-ignores-actual-whistleblowers/
As she points out, Assange is a whistleblower. Even Bradley Manning. Edward Snowden.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
This is why Impeachment, as a precursor to the trial for removal, must remand the person into the custody of the Senate, creating an absence, albeit temporary, to prevent the impeached person from having access to material and persons which may be used as part of the Trial for Removal!
There is no criminal proceeding that would allow the indicted person access to persons or materials which may be used in their trial, and their freedom will also be determined by the court, for the time before the trial and During the trial proceedings, and just because this trial is taking place in the Senate, not a criminal court, and it does not have any criminal penalties, only removal, doesn’t change the proceedings to allow the impeached person to remain on their job on their personal recognizance, which is something which will be decided by the person presiding over their trial, and in the case of the President is the Chief Justice of the United States who will determine the severity of the charges, which are criminal in nature, against the accused person and decide if that person can be free, or if that person needs to be held in custody while awaiting trial and During the trial!
The impeachment and removal process is not wholly political in nature, it is wholly criminal in nature, and the accused must be treated as such, just like any other criminal defendant in any other criminal proceeding.
Just because they are the President of the United States, or any other Government Official, does not mitigate the court’s responsibility or authority when it comes to the disposition of the accused! The President May be impeached for a crime of murder, you wouldn’t allow a murderer to be free on their own personal recognizance while awaiting trial and During the trial proceedings, that person would only regain their freedom upon acquittal! Government officials are no different just because the trial for impeachment carries no criminal penalties. Once removed they are immediately remanded over to the jurisdiction where the criminal acts took place for criminal prosecution, where upon conviction face criminal penalties, up to and including the the death penalty.
We have to stop thinking of impeachment as a political process, to be used against political adversaries, and decided based upon partisan affiliation, and give it the authority of a criminal proceeding that it truly is!
In an ideal world you would be right but, in this instance, it is wholly partisan. Unlike the other impeachment enquires it originated from a part of a single party. Even in the Republican driven Clinton impeachment, the full house voted. This is more a Coup de tat than an impeachment. They are afraid Trump will prove unbeatable at the ballot box. I suspect this will blow up in their faces as the Russian Collusion Hoax did, only on steroids.
Full house will vote in due time so stop with your silliness.
Trump referred to the whistleblower’s sources as spies, not the whistleblower- at least in the comment I saw.
Given Hillary’s involvement with the GPS / Steele attempted coup d’etat, which still continues rebranded under this Medusa, where is the 4th estate “when democracy dies in darkness”?
Well, I would want to know who is ratting me out on 2nd hand knowledge and newspaper articles.
One question. Who is the CIA whistleblower? Adam Schiff?
He said, that she said, that she overheard . . . Exactly, which one does the law protect?
Somewhere in our legal system aren’t you supposed to meet your accuser face to face?
Yes, it’s called in criminal proceedings. Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding. Also you face your accuser at trial, not before.
The accusor can be faced any time at any place. Catch the whistleblower coming out of the cathouse in the Bronx and with a video camera going ask him what he was doing in there. If it is a she ask the same.