is what we re seeing in this particular moment is just how much faith all of us journalists, included, have in our institutions and what they tell us, because we had all of the evidence, but it took someone raising their hand and saying, listen, this isn t right, for all of us to shift our perspective a little bit. i think a lot about that new york times op-ed with the person who said, you know, on the inside the administration, and we re really trying to manage this, and control things, and we re doing a good job. running toward the fire. right. exactly. and what you see from the whistle-blower evidence is that there are limits to that. because the president is still the president. and so the whistle-blower complaints are important, because they really focus us in that way. charlie, what are you watching for, as this story evolves on this potential second whistle-blower, and for that matter, the sort of wider space that mary was alluding to, those who are in the administration
credible and raised an urgent concern. all right. i understand. thank you, charlie. let s get over to you barbara, when we look at the potential reprisals charlie was mentioning and trying to get the legal protections by being involved in this process, as it stands, how might this potential second whistle-blower here, barbara, handle their case, and what they are considering in the right way? so two basic things that the whistle-blower protection laws do in the intelligence community. one is provide a mechanism for someone who is an employee who has signed an agreement not to share the nation s secrets with outsiders, classified information, it provides an avenue for reporting that up to congress. so that is one thing that whistle-blower broke gets, and the reason someone might invoke its protections. the other is to protect their job, from reprisals. so a boss might say, you have been disloyal to our organization, i m going to demote you or terminate you. so it provides protection
good work but it is not working so maybe we need to come forward and say something. what are you watching for, charlie? i have to say, a few days ago, i thought all of the facts that were necessary to make a judgment about this were already in the public record, and that all of the focus on who is the whistle-blower, and what did that person testify before congress, was misplaced, because once the white house s own documentation showed what the call had, i thought we knew what we knew. and of course, trump went out and said it again in front of the cameras. there is really no doubt what he is trying to do here, he is doing it in maybe plain view. but then the texts that ambassador voeker turned over late thursday night showed me that i must be wrong, there must be a whole gigantic paper trail of stuff like that to add texture and remove doubt on those who are not sure what happened here, yet to be obtained. that s part of what congress is doing with the subpoena with the internal whi