despite having to hand it over to congress, donald trump s acting director of national intelligence joseph mcgwire is refusing to do so which is let s be clear, unprecedented. something house intel chair adam schiff recently pointed out. the reason he s not acting to provide it even though the statute mandates that he do so is because he is being instructed not to. tonight hers late word we may get more answers. the acting director of national intelligence has agreed to adam schiff s request to testify in public before the intelligence committee next thursday. joining me now to help explain exactly what is at stake here greg sarergeant. what are the stakes here involved in the showdown? it comes down to the way the statute was drafted, right? there s a reason it was drafted the way it was.
day the american people are trying to decide what s the reality that s going on, what s politics, what s noise, and this was just a very loud day with a lot of political noise where i don t think we learned much of anything. another conflict between the white house and congress involves the intelligence community whistle-blower. chairman schiff says acting intelligence joseph mcgwire is refusing to turn over the contents of what schiff calls a credible urgent whistle-blower complaint involving a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of law or deficiency. i was made a month ago, right? the question here is what are they hiding? this is hard to fathom. if you think about what a whistle-blower is this is someone coming forward to report some type of alleged malfeasance, criminal activity, we don t know. and there are mechanisms placed inside if an employee sees something, they can report that without it becoming public.
should not have been left alone in his cell at all and that guards should have been checking on him. even when he was asleep. what is the official explanation for this? well, ana, the bureau of prisons which overseas the metropolitan correctional center where epstein was held is not commenting at all at this hour, but those are all great questions that you ve just laid out, and questions that the fbi and the department of justice s office of inspector general are very likely to be investigating, themselves, and focusing on. a source familiar with epstein s detention has told our colleague, mark morales, that there appeared to be at least two breaches in what would be the normal protocol. epstein was held on suicide watch because he was found about three weeks ago in his cell unconscious with marks on his neck. now, pending release from suicide watch, according to protocol, you re supposed to have a cell mate, someone, another inmate, who is in the cell with you so you re not alone. b
and he didn t have a cell mate. that s what we re hearing today from a source with knowledge of epstein s time at the federal prison where he was found dead this weekend. epstein was a politically connected multimillionaire and convicted sex offender awaiting trial on new federal sex trafficking charges. he reportedly tried to kill himself a couple of weeks ago so the questions today remain, why, why was someone with epstein s history not monitored more closely? how was he able to take his own life in his super secure federal facility jail cell? where, where were the people whose job it is to keep inmates alive and safe so they can stand trial for the crimes they re accused of? who failed and who is responsible? a sars source says the two guar the special housing unit were both working overtime and one working his fifth extra shift of the week. cnn has been following this breaking news this evening. kara, this source is also telling cnn jeffrey epstein
inner workings of what they do. but trump passed her over instead chose someone, joseph mcgwire, the current director of the national counterterrorism center, to serve as directing dire that means his learning curve as acting director is going to be much steeper. that means that more balls could be dropped during this transition period. at the same time, president trump signaled that he didn t want sue gordon s experience. her experience, in his eyes, was a liability maybe because of her time serving under president obama. disregarding the fact she served under bipartisan presidents from other administrations as well. and president trump is signaling that experienced intelligence professionals who do their jobs may be fired, passed over, or worst yet, investigated just for coming to work. i really cringe to think who s interested in the role of director of national intelligence based upon what the president is actually looking for in this role. one of the areas that this president