The Establishments war on Donald Trump
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Title: Tom Cotton to IC IG: Your Evasiveness On Whether You Backdated Changes to the Whistleblower Process Borders on Criminal Obstruction
Source:
Ace of Spades
URL Source: http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=383678
Published: Oct 9, 2019
Author: Ace
Post Date: 2019-10-09 20:43:58 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 750
Comments: 2
They changed the reporting requirements, then back-dated them by a month to make them seem like they'd been in force... well, for all of a month. But I guess that looks better than having them changed on the day of the fake "whistleblower's" Schiffty complaint. Sean Davis previously reported: ... Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general, told HPSCI lawmakers during a committee oversight hearing on Friday that the whistleblower forms and rules changes were made in September, even though the new forms and guidance, which were not uploaded to the ICIG’s website until September 24, state that they were changed in August. Despite having a full week to come up with explanations for his office’s decisions to secretly change its forms to eliminate the requirement for first-hand evidence and to backdate those changes to August, Atkinson refused to provide any explanation to lawmakers baffled by his behavior. Now Senator Tom Cotton accuses Atkinson of obstruction and demands answers about whether Atkinson leaked the Fake "Whistelblower's" Democrat ties to the House Intelligence Committee while refusing to share the same information with the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee. And he also wants to know if Atkinson was the source for Jake Tapper's false claim (made "without evidence") that the only "indicia of political bias" was that the fake whistleblower was a registered Democrat: Cotton said Atkinson refused to disclose to SSCI members why Atkinson initially determined the anti-Trump complainant had a partisan political bias against Trump. "Despite repeated questions, you refused to explain what you meant in your written report by 'indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of a rival political candidate,'" Cotton wrote. "This information is, of course, unclassified and we were meeting in a closed setting. Yet you moralized about how you were duty bound not to share even a hint of this political bias with us." "But now I see media reports that you revealed to the House Intelligence Committee not only that the complainant is a registered Democrat, but also that he has a professional relationship with a Democratic presidential campaign," Cotton continued. "I'm dissatisfied, to put it mildly, with your refusal to answer my questions, while more fully briefing the three-ring circus that the House Intelligence Committee has become." By the way, the Fake Whistleblower's lawyer Mark Zaid denies political bias, but in a very lawyerly way: Note the allegation is that this person has worked for/with a Democrat candidate. Zaid says the guy never worked for a "political candidate, campaign, or party." Well the thing is -- a sharp-minded friend of mine observes -- that a sitting Vice President is not a political candidate. His read on this is that Zaid is pretty much telling us the whistleblower is a CIA agent formerly detailed to Vice President Joe Biden's national security staff. Which might also explain why he was "visibly shaken" at the thought that his boss' actions, which might include some of his own actions, were going to be investigated. Just speculation. But it reads as plausible to me. By the way: Be careful what you say to Mark Zaid on twitter. If he doesn't like it, he'll blackmail you. He'll threaten to reveal information about you that you don't want revealed unless you forgo your right to speak. That is blackmail. You can release information about someone, and you can tell someone to do something, but you can't threaten to release information about someone unless they do something or forgo doing something. It's the definition of the crime. Blackmail is telling someone you will release damaging information unless they do something or forgo doing something they have a right to do. Mark Zaid should know that. But maybe he just doesn't care, and figures that no one's going to prosecute a well-connected lawyer over a little blackmail and extortion. Poster Comment: So they backdated the whistleblower rule change by a month to try to legitimize this very irregular and radical change in policy that formerly required whistleblowers to have first-hand knowledge/evidence of wrongdoing?
In tense testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on Friday, the inspector general for federal spy agencies refused to disclose why his office backdated secret changes to key whistleblower forms and rules in the wake of an anti-Trump whistleblower complaint filed in August, sources told The Federalist. "Your disappointing testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on September 26 was evasive to the point of being insolent and obstructive," Cotton, a Republican member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), wrote on Wednesday. Lawyers for whistleblower reject claims of political bias. https://t.co/Oy3pjAxs4U pic.twitter.com/PGadpnuQit— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) October 9, 2019 Hey "Rex", why don't you reveal your identity instead of attacking someone while hiding? I'd love to have my intelligence and law enforcement clients see what they can find about your life. We can compare notes on our research efforts. What do you say? Game?— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) May 27, 2018
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#1. To: Tooconservative (#0)
The same "Rex" who bought a house near Obama for $5.6 million? The guy who claimed he didn't get the "autonomy" he thought he was entitled to? Secretary of State Rex Tillerson talks with Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis before the start of a dinner with President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House earlier this week. (NEWSER) – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson finds dealing with the White House frustrating, and tensions boiled over Friday when he "exploded" at a White House aide, insiders tell Politico. The sources say White House officials present, including Jared Kushner, were "stunned" when Tillerson laid into presidential personnel office chief Johnny DeStefano for rejecting his picks for State Department posts. Tillerson also accused the White House of leaking damaging information about him to the media, the sources say. DeStefano's office has turned down many of Tillerson's choices for top posts either for being Democrats or for being Republicans who criticized Trump during the campaign, aides say. The outburst from the former Exxon CEO came after disagreements with the White House on issues including Qatar, where he has tried to mediate in the dispute with other Arab nations, only to be publicly undermined by President Trump. Insiders tell the New York Times that Tillerson and Kushner are struggling for control of Middle East policy, and Tillerson is frustrated that he doesn't have the autonomy Trump promised him. "Rex is a 65-year-old guy who worked his way up from the bottom at Exxon, and he chafes at the idea of taking orders from a 38-year-old political operative," a former transition aide tells Politico of DeStefano. https://www.newser.com/story/244997/sources-tillersons-frustration-with-white- house-exploded.html
Not the same Rex IMO. Tillerson is a lot smarter than to betray Trump like that, even if he felt Trump wasn't fair to him or gave him the same respect that he's given Pompeo at State. Tillerson was always a bookmark, someone easy to confirm. But I think Trump had Pompeo in mind for that job all along. And putting him at CIA first has become the traditional route to national security advisor and/or secretary of state. Colin Powell led the Joint Chiefs before he went that route. Condoleeza Rice was national security advisor before SoS. Panetta was Xlinton's WH chief of staff in the Nineties, Obama made him CIA chief for a few years and he became SecDef when Robert Gates retired. Robert Gates was Bush's second SecDef and was held over several years into Obama's WH years until Obama replaced him with Panetta. For that matter, Cheney was Ford's WH chief of staff, became Bush Senior's SecDef, then became Bush Junior's VP pick (after Cheney led the search committee to find a VP and apparently discovered that he himself was just the man for the job). I'm just pointing out that the most serious players in national security are groomed through a couple of jobs over a few years and then promoted to the top jobs. And they can last through a change of administration, as we've seen at CIA and at SecDef. This is something that the two parties have apparently agreed to, maybe because they don't want so much changeover in top national security jobs.
"Rex"
#2. To: WWG1WWA (#1)
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