This is a major, major development in the Trump-Ukraine saga and it points exactly at what a lot of people suspected.

The Federalist’s Sean Davis has discovered that the intel community secretly changed the rules governing whistle-blowers, including amending the required form, in order to allow 2nd hand information to suffice. This happened just days before the Trump-Ukraine whistle-blower filed his complaint.

BREAKING: The intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblower complaints contain only direct, first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing allegations. A new version of the complaint form allowing hearsay was secretly revised last month. https://t.co/ZvCpCMBx8h — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 27, 2019

BREAKING: Federal records show that the intelligence community secretly revised the formal whistleblower complaint form in August 2019 to eliminate the requirement of direct, first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing.https://t.co/R3BXndeYgc — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) September 27, 2019

The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.” The internal properties of the newly revised “Disclosure of Urgent Concern” form, which the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) requires to be submitted under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), show that the document was uploaded on September 24, 2019, at 4:25 p.m., just days before the anti-Trump complaint was declassified and released to the public. The markings on the document state that it was revised in August 2019, but no specific date of revision is disclosed… …A previous version of the whistleblower complaint document, which the ICIG and DNI until recently provided to potential whistleblowers, declared that any complaint must contain only first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoing and that complaints that provide only hearsay, rumor, or gossip would be rejected. “The [Intelligence Community Inspector General] cannot transmit information via the ICPWA based on an employee’s second-hand knowledge of wrongdoing,” the previous form stated under the bolded heading “FIRST-HAND INFORMATION REQUIRED.” “This includes information received from another person, such as when an employee informs you that he/she witnessed some type of wrongdoing.” “If you think that wrongdoing took place, but can provide nothing more than second-hand or unsubstantiated assertions, [the Intelligence Community Inspector General] will not be able to process the complaint or information for submission as an ICWPA,” the form concluded.

Many have been baffled by the ability of the whistle-blower to file a complaint and force the release of a classified transcript based on nothing but 2nd and 3rd hand, illegal leaks. Now we know how that was possible. The Intel Community changed the rules at the same time the complaint was being written.

Here’s the biggest red flag with that. That complaint was so well written, so thorough, that there’s noway it wasn’t done over the course of weeks with involvement of others. Yet, it was submitted just days after this rule change was finalized and the news forms revised. That points directly at the whistle-blower and his team not only being aware the rule change would happen, but that the rule change was made specifically for them.

If this isn't a giveaway about the operation that was being run, I don't know what is. https://t.co/cRTaMEwr5h — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 27, 2019

Here’s another issue that’s going to be pressed in the coming days. Was the form even really revised in August? Because the actual form that claims an August revision was only actually released two days ago on September 25th. It looks like it could be back-fill to cover up the intel community originally breaking the rules by allowing the complaint.

time to FOI documentation of form revision. To be precise, it's possible, even likely, that form was not "revised" as no evidence of previous form. The footer "Revised" might be camouflage. https://t.co/yF6fbs5Y0r — Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) September 27, 2019

This complaint is looking more and more like a coordinated hit. The way it was written, the timeline involved, the way Adam Schiff knew about it weeks before it was even filed, and now this rule change which made it even possible. It’s all too much to be coincidence.

Certainly, the mainstream media will ignore this as they always do. The real test will be whether certain conservatives who’ve been defending all this the past few days will now begin to question their presumptions.

As every Democratic narrative about the Ukraine scandal is revealed to be completely false, pause for a moment and take inventory of people on the Right who fell for it. Again. It always pays to know who the suckers are. — Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) September 27, 2019

For all the gnashing of teeth and sneering condemnations hurled at those who have used the term “deep state,” that’s what this is. This is un-elected, secret government officials trying to remove a President and being willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish that.

It’s out in the open now and it has to be reckoned with.

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