Whistleblowing

‘Potential criminality': Top Republicans push watchdog on timing of changes to whistleblower complaint form

Three top House Republicans wrote to the inspector general for the intelligence community Monday to find out if whistleblower reporting requirements were improperly loosened in order to accommodate an allegation against President Trump.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top GOP lawmaker on the House Oversight Committee, wrote to Inspector General Michael K. Atkinson to demand information related to the decision to loosen whistleblower reporting requirements so that non-firsthand accounts would be accepted.

The change to the reporting requirement was made in August, the same month a whistleblower reported Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The whistleblower did not hear or see the call first hand and his complaint was leaked to the news media. Democrats who first heard about the call through leaks to the media announced they have launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump’s behavior.

The whistleblower accused Trump of asking Zelensky to investigate his chief political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Trump has released an inexact transcript of the call as well as the whistleblower complaint.

But Republicans are questioning whether the rules were changed to accommodate the whistleblower.