On Friday, September 27, 2019 at 10:45:59 AM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:
trader_4 wrote:

This is like complaining whether a fire alarm call came from one
person or three,

This so-called "whistle" doesn't even qualify as meeting the test of a
whistle report under the domain of the DNI.

I agree. But that won't matter any more here than it did when Deep Throat
was feeding info to Woodward and Gates during Watergate. That
whistleblower did the country a great service, exposing abuse of power,
betrayal of his duties, and trading foreign policy, national security
issues, for his personal and campaign purposes. The more Trump gets
away with, the more emboldened he is and the more illegal and stupid
things he does.











I watched the first 1.5 hours of the DNI (director of national
intelligence) testifing (in public, which is a first for these things)
in front of the house Committee (Schiff and Nunes). This was yesterday,
starting at 8 or 9 am.

Did you watch it?

I listened to a lot of it.


The DNI, as part of answering variations of the same question over and
over and over again, stated the legal terms of what qualifies as a
"whistle-blower" report, and the conversation between Trump and anyone
else DOES NOT QUALIFY.

And like Republicans and their defenders usually do, he did a terrible
job. He kept saying that the report did not meet the legal definition
of urgent concern. He went round and round on that. From my reading,
I agree with you, the real issue is that the whistleblower law for the
intel community says it applies to abuses, irregularities, within the
intel community. It says nothing about irregularities that they hear
about concerning other areas of govt. But the DNI instead kept referring
to the legal definition of "urgent concern" and it left the impression
that he was making the claim that it just wasn't an 'urgent concern".
Score one for the Dems. But it's irrelevant at this point, the cat is
out of the bag and this will be fully investigated.





In short, a "whistle" can't be blown if it does not pertain to financial
or operational events or pertain to people under the chain of command of
the DNI. The POTUS is not, under previously determined law, is not a
member of the intelligence community, and he DOES NOT report TO the
DNI. The DNI reports to HIM.

I agree.




And further more, ANY communications the president has with ANYONE is
AUTOMATICALLY covered by executive privlege and can't be subpoena'd by
congress.

That isn't true. A president can only legitimately assert exec privilege
on certain things. Had Trump tried to exert it on that phone call,
the House would have subpoenaed it and it would have wound up in the
courts. And 99% the courts would have upheld that since it involves
an alleged abuse of office and a crime, that EP does not apply.
Even the WH realized that, which is why they made it public.





A whisle-blower report filed with the DNI must be turned over to the
house (and senate?) intelligence committee within or by 7 days after the
filing.

Even after seeking all appropriate legal council, even though this DID
NOT MEET THE TEST for an incident or situation that the whistle-blower
law was designed for, the DNI treated it as a whistle-blower report
(WBR).

BUT - BUT he's torn to uphold another rule - that of executive
privledge, which ordinarily wouldn't kick in because a LEGIT WBI would
NEVER APPLY TO THE PRESIDENT IN THE FIRST PLACE. So he can't release
the WBI to the committee because it meets the test of Executive
Privledge.

During the hearing, the democrats focused EXCLUSIVELY on why they
weren't given the report. They are treating this as a process-crime, a
cover-up.

I agree, that was mostly wrong too. They tried to make it sound like
the DNI was part of a cover up. They berated him for going to the WH
lawyers on the issue of exec privilege and for going to the DOJ for
clarification of the law. At one point, I think it was Schiff, was
all over the DNI saying that he was not in the DOJ, suggesting that the
DNI did not have to take their legal opinion. He suggested it was wrong
to go to the DOJ, because Barr was mentioned in the phone call. OK,
Schiff has a point. But then who was the DNI supposed to go to for
the legal opinion? Some local law firm? The Energy Dept?




They didn't delve AT ALL into the merits of the so-called "whistle"
being blown.

Like I said, the Republicans aren't very good at this. But it's water
under the bridge, the cat is out of the bag, so far the WB has been
100% correct with what they claimed. And any attempts to discredit
the WB will likely just make things worse for Trump. He's toast this
time. There are just way too many moving parts, all over the place,
which will confirm and expand on what we already know.