Tom Cotton to IC IG: Your Evasiveness On Whether You Backdated Changes to the Whistleblower Process Borders on Criminal Obstruction

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:

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.

...

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:

"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.

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.

posted by Ace of Spades at 06:20 PM

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