EXCLUSIVE: It Doesn’t Add Up – Did Partisan CIA ‘Whistleblower’ File Two Separate Complaints?

As The Federalist reported and the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) confirmed, the spy watchdog secretly changed its whistleblower forms and internal rules in September to eliminate a requirement that whistleblowers provide first-hand evidence to support any allegations of wrongdoing. In a press release last week, the ICIG confessed that it changed its rules in response to an anti-Trump complaint filed on August 12. That complaint, which was declassified and released by President Donald Trump in September, was based entirely on second-hand information, much of which was shown to be false following the declassification and release of a telephone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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.

When pressed on the curious changes and attempts to obscure the timeline of his revisions, Atkinson refused to explain why the forms were backdated to August even though they were not made until September. The ICIG previously stated that it changed its forms and guidance “in response to recent press inquiries regarding” the anti-Trump complaint, of which Congress was not even notified until the second week of September. The new forms, which were not uploaded to the ICIG website until September 24, nonetheless stated that the revisions were made back in August.

Lawmakers honed in on the discrepancy during Atkinson’s appearance on Capitol Hill on Friday. How could the forms have been changed back in August if they were changed in response to press inquiries that could not have been made until mid-September at the earliest?

The original whistleblower complaint appears to be a letter to Congress –

This suggests that the original form was never filed at the time of the whistleblower complaint.  If it was then the form at that time would have shown that this was not a valid ‘whistleblower’ complaint because it didn’t allow for 2nd hand information.  If the whistleblower did file a complaint using the form necessary to file a complaint indicating that 2nd hand information was adequate then it would have had to be completed in late September.

Did the ‘whistleblower’ file two forms with the Intel community – one in August before the form was updated to allow for 2nd hand information and one after?  None of this makes sense and because none of this makes sense, there must be some shenanigans going on. 

This leads us to the ICIG – Mr Michael Atkinson – the Conservative Treehouse notes Atkinson’s shady past –