The current scandal floating around Washington is something that may or may not have happened. At a classified briefing today, Intelligence Community IG Michael Atkinson was asked about a rumored “whistleblower” case that Adam Schiff believes a) concerns President Trump b) talking to a foreign leader that c) offended said whistleblower. At issue is a law that requires the IC to provide certain investigative reports to Congress under certain circumstances.

The Washington Post has reported this:

Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community, said the former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. It was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver, but his direct involvement in the matter has not been previously disclosed. It raises new questions about the president’s handling of sensitive information and may further strain his relationship with U.S. spy agencies. One former official said the communication was a phone call.

The best guess is that the foreign leader was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the “promise” was of better relations with the US if the Ukraine reenergized its investigation into Joe Biden’s role in influence peddling to aid his son, Hunter, when he was a director (how did that happen, right?) of Ukraine’s largest national gas company and his intervention to get the prosecutor looking into Hunter Biden’s corruption fired. This is Joe Biden’s quote:

“I remember going over (to Ukraine), convincing our team … that we should be providing for loan guarantees. … And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from (then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko) and from (then-Prime Minister Arseniy) Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor (Shokin). And they didn’t. … “They were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, … we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president.’ … I said, call him. I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. … I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

This is Schiff’s letter to Atkiknson earlier in the month demanding to see the complaint.

Chairman Schiff’s office has released the first letter IC IG Atkinson sent them about the whistleblower complaint, dated September 9th. pic.twitter.com/zY0mIZJRji — southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) September 19, 2019

Things got a lot hotter today when Atkinson refused to confirm or deny any part of the story. What is clear from the letter Atkinson sent to Schiff on September 17, is that the Department of Justice and the Director of National Intelligence are directing him to not talk to Schiff and that he’s not happy about it.

Schiff, being the needle…ummm…pencil neck that he is threatened legal action.

Adam Schiff: DNI's refusal to turn over whistleblower complaint is "unprecedented": Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson on Thursday declined to provide lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee with details of a… https://t.co/dqqhGrAKur #politics #top pic.twitter.com/yVT6K8Lz4X — Marcus Evans ⚛️ 🔬 🔭 (@MarcuswevansSr) September 19, 2019

Schiff is just blowing smoke and he knows it. A rabidly anti-Trump national security lawyer from LawFareBlog gives this analysis:

2/ Bob Litt notes Clinton’s claim (reiterated by Obama) that the Whistleblower statute “does not constrain [the president’s] constitutional authority to review and, if appropriate, control disclosure of certain classified information to Congress.” https://t.co/8jMjcRhDzo — Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith) September 19, 2019

4/ More generally, it cannot be constitutional for a statute to give an NSA employee monitoring intercepts (or whatever) the authority to disclose to Congress the classified communications of POTUS with a foreign leader. — Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith) September 19, 2019

6/ This isn't a defense of Trump, it's a defense of the presidency. Imagine next POTUS is one you like. That POTUS cannot conduct foreign policy if his or her controversial secret foreign policy communications can be disclosed at the determination of an intelligence employee. — Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith) September 19, 2019

8/ Trump has been challenging this principle, in various guises, for almost three years. He has shown time and time again the extent to which our constitutional system assumes and relies on a president with a modicum of national fidelity, and decent judgment, and reasonableness. — Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith) September 19, 2019

10/ I don’t think there is a legal avenue to correct such a betrayal of national trust by the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief. That is one of the accommodations the Constitution makes for the benefits of a vigorous presidency who can conduct foreign policy in secret. — Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith) September 19, 2019

12/ I don't recommend that course of action. But I do think that unless what Trump did rises to the level of objective betrayal that such an act of disobedience would be warranted and justifiable and forgivable, then whatever Trump did should remain within the executive branch. — Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith) September 19, 2019

13/ These are super-hard problems, but I fear that the attacks on presidential secrecy here are (in Jackson’s words) “confusing the issue of a power's validity with the cause it is invoked to promote, of confounding the permanent executive office with its temporary occupant.” END — Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith) September 19, 2019

Absent knowing what happened that got panties wadded, I’m not going to waste a lot of time wondering about it. I will note that it is entirely unsurprising that as riddled as the IC is with hard core #Resistance members and as much information as has been leaked with the express purpose of damaging Trump the release of another “foreign meddling” allegation into a presidential election is hardly shocking. And, given that Rudy Giuliani was in Ukraine just a few weeks ago, allegedly to dig up stuff on Biden, the conversation that is rumored to have taken place between Trump and the Ukraine president would also be unsurprising. I’m not sure it is a good look, but I’m not sure that Joe Biden running interference for his kid and getting an noted anti-corruption prosecutor fired is a particularly good look either.

The fat guy who is married to Kellyanne Conway is squirting blood out of his whatever:

If this actually happened, @realDonaldTrump should be impeached and removed from office without delay. https://t.co/WkiA3yXPEx — George Conway (@gtconway3d) September 19, 2019

As are a lot of others on the left.

The bottom line here is that unless the whistleblower goes directly to Schiff, and faces the music for doing that because that will not be a cost-free endeavor, then Schiff can scream all he wants but nothing happens. If the whistleblower does out himself, then we have another circus on our hands.

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