CIA Headquarters Building in McLean, Va. (Larry Downing/Reuters)

The Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) has put out a statement regarding claims that it changed a key policy to facilitate a whistleblower complaint against Trump. The ICIG is responsible for processing these complaints and, when appropriate, passing them along to Congress’s intelligence committees.

Since late last week, conservative media and GOP lawmakers have been abuzz with the allegation that the ICIG used to require whistleblowers to have firsthand knowledge of the wrongdoing they were reporting, but nixed that requirement just in time for the complaint reporting Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president. (The individual admitted he — or she — was not a direct witness to “most” of what he reported, including the call itself.) The evidence of the policy change was to be found in the forms that whistleblowers file and the accompanying informational materials, which had recently been revised.


The new statement would seem to put an end to that. The whistleblower filed a form that had been around for about a year. On that form he indicated that he had a mix of first- and secondhand knowledge, not just secondhand knowledge. Further, it has never been the office’s policy to reject complaints that lack firsthand knowledge, a requirement also not found in the underlying laws.

The letter further notes, though, that the office has indeed been “reviewing and clarifying” its forms these past few months, in part because “certain language in those forms and, more specifically, the informational materials accompanying the forms, could be read — incorrectly — as suggesting that whistleblowers must possess first-hand information in order to file an urgent concern complaint with the congressional intelligence committees.”

Which brings me to my point: These people need better editors. If it is in fact not your policy to reject complaints not backed by firsthand knowledge, this excerpt from an informational sheet — especially the bit I’ve bolded, which says the ICIG won’t even “process” a complaint without firsthand knowledge — is terrible:

In order to find an urgent concern “credible,” the IC IG must be in possession of reliable, first-hand information. The IC IG cannot transmit information via the ICWPA [Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act] based on an employee’s second-hand knowledge of wrongdoing. This includes information received from another person, such as when a fellow employee informs you that he/she witnessed some type of wrongdoing. (Anyone with first-hand knowledge of the allegations may file a disclosure in writing directly with the IC IG.) Similarly, speculation about the existence of wrongdoing does not provide sufficient basis to meet the statutory requirements of the ICWPA. If you think wrongdoing took place, but can provide nothing more than secondhand or unsubstantiated assertions, IC IG will not be able to process the complaint or information for submission as an ICWPA.

The Ukraine whistleblower was actually provided this language, according to the new statement, so it wasn’t eliminated for his benefit. And again, when he filed his form he marked that he had both first- and secondhand knowledge, so a requirement of firsthand knowledge wouldn’t have mattered anyway — whether it was an actual policy or just an erroneous sentence on an informational sheet. But man, what a train wreck.