Page 39 - Intelligence Committees News Today

This information to congress if its urgent and serious. theres no discretion. congress used that word on purpose because, you know, whistleblower allegations are very sensitive and so it has to be handled in a particular way. here the law said its got to be given to the intelligence committees. and what trump did or trumps -- by the way, this is trumps own inspector general. this is his guy he appointed. and that inspector general said, whoa, this is really serious and urgent and has to be turne...

To the intelligence committees. and the reason why this is so important, katy, is that if theres no way for whistle-blowers to go to the intelligence committees with what are top secret information then we have edward snowdens to undermine the country and the many secrets we want to retain for purposes of keeping our country safe. >> do you believe that you need more information? the president has already admitted that he spoke to the ukrainian president about the bidens, he spoke to them about ...

>> we have several over lapping circles of kind eluded to, repeatedly asking and romney included asking as well as pressuring the ukrainian president to open this investigation into joe biden at the same time he was with holding military aid appropriated for the country and the refusal of the administration to turnover the whistle blower complaint to the intelligence committees as is specified in the law and then the third thing we have i think with the kind of exception of mitt romney is the si...

Committee hears from the inspector general and if they are able to see that complaint, because thats actually one of the biggest frustrations that the intelligence committee has is that the intelligence ig said the administration barred him from sharing that whistleblower complaint with the intelligence committees. and its spelled out in the constitution that congress has the right to conduct oversight and donate investigations. and so we shall see how this moves forward. but again democrats do ...

Agreement whereby the administration shares what they think is not -- doesnt need to be protected from national security purposes. yet satisfied the members of the intelligence committees and allows us to determine whether this is something that really requires further investigation or not. i mean, at this point, we dont know anything. were getting a bunch of leaked rumors and thats all we have. >> are you at all concerned, though, that aid was delayed for as long as it was and now at the same t...

It has worked for them in the past and no reason to believe it wont work for them in the future. i gross theyre probably concerned about the information from the whistle-blower -- >> giuliani already setup going after the whistle-blower is how they often lie and all that stuff. preet, last question to you, what do you want to know going forward? >> theres this legalistic back and forth between the inspector general of the intelligence community and the acting dni person in which theres a debate ...

Whistleblower complaint as the ukraine witch hunt. striking out yesterday in the oval office, and again today on twitter, against this whistleblower complaint and trying to paint it as some kind of a partisan exercise. that, of course, alex, ignores the role that the inspector general for the intelligence community has played. this is somebody who was appointed by president trump, confirmed by the u.s. senate last year. and he, in fact, has taken the extraordinary decepof going to -- step of goi...

Right thing. the other thing he did was he asked leader of the cia, notably allen dulles, to speak quietly to people like the chairman of the armed services committee, to sort of let them know a little bit what was going on. and then you move up to the 1970s, and there were some big failures at the time of watergate, and people felt that it should be more formalized, and thats the time when these intelligence committees in the house and senate really began. >> jon, are you confident, do you have...

Were back now with sam, evan and sean. so, listen, sean, i want to read part of the intel inspector generals letter to the house intelligence committee responding to the dni saying that the complaint is not in our jurisdiction. michael atkinson writes i nevertheless respectfully disagree with the acting dnis conclusi conclusion that it doesnt contain any intelligence activity and that the disclosure, therefore, need not be transmitted to the congressional intelligence committees. so what atkinso...

Even though the director of national intelligence was under no obligation to transmit complaints that did not meet the definition of urgent concern or were not credible, even those complaints were routinely forwarded to the intelligence committees. the inspector general added, "past practice permitted complainants in the intelligence community to contact the congressional intelligence y committees directly in an authorized and protected manner as intended by the urgent concern statue. i am conti...