is a separate problem in and of itself. of course, the president never said if you don t understand me, i m going to say it seven more times. my point is that s the message that the ukraine president was receiving. in not so many words. mr. carson. thank you, chairman. thank you, director mcguire for your service. director, this appears to be the first intelligence community whistle-blower that has ever, ever been withheld from congress. is that right, sir? congressman carson, i believe it might be. and once again, i said in my statement it is, in fact, as far as i m concerned, unprecedented. it is unprecedented, sir. do you know why it s unprecedented? i think it s because the law that congress, that this very
so if you could, describe your thoughts on that. and i was very interested in your discussion on the issue of executive privilege because there s been much made of the fact that the law says on the whistle blower statute that usually. clearly you have a conflict of laws when you have the executive privilege issue and the issue of the word shall. so, first, could you tell us the importance of the whistle-blower statute with respect to accountability of the intelligence commute and our role of oversight there and then your process, your effects of being stuck in the middle when you have these conflicts of law. congressman, the intelligence community whistle-blower protection act is to apply to the intelligence community. and then it pertains to financial, administrative or operational activities within the intelligence community under
worked, the white house and the department of justice. his answer was this was an unprecedented situation and he didn t know what else to do. what did you think of that? first, i thought joe maguire did a masterful job in a very difficult circumstance. he has been acting dni for, what, six weeks? he was in a very tough place. and there are a couple of reasons for this. one, the ambiguity of the law itself. intelligence community whistleblower protection act with which is silent, not surprisingly, on this subject. what happens when the objective of the complaint is the pez of the united states? it doesn t treat that. so i think i m sure he had a lot of discussions with his general counsel and i think he did the correct thing institutionally, which is to consult, or perhaps his general counsel did, with the white house general counsel s office and/or the office of legal counsel in the department of justice, which is the senior level authority, senior voice for legal issues in the
execution. execution, yeah. is that witness intimidation? at a minimum, it is witness retaliation. it actually certainly conflicts with the spirit of the intelligence community whistleblower protection act because that s one of the purposes, is to insulate complainants from retaliation. clearly, this is retaliation threatened in the worst way. and what s really bad about it, this is going to have a very chilling effect on any other potential whistleblowers if this is going to be the result and a threat like that from no less than the president. the acting director of national intelligence, that s the job that you had, except you were confirmed director of national intelligence. acting general director went before the house committee today and got tough questions which how come when he got this complaint, which mentions in the first paragraph president trump and attorney general barr, he went to places where they
in your discussion on the issue of executive privilege because there has been much made of the fact that the law says on the whistle-blower statute that you shall. clearly you have a conflict of laws when you have both the executive privilege issue and the issue of the word shall. first can you tell us the importance of the whistle-blower statute with respect to accountability of the intelligence community and our role of oversight there, and then your process, your effects of being stuck in the middle where you have these conflicts. congressman, the intelligence community whistle-blower protection act is to apply to the intelligence community and then it pertains to financial, administrative or operational activities within the intelligence community in the under the oversight and responsibility of the director