House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff knew the details of the whistleblower's complaint against President Trump before it was filed because the CIA officer went to one of the committee aides beforehand, according to the New York Times.
After a colleague went to the agency's top lawyer and feeling unsatisfied with the status of the response, the whistleblower approached a House Intelligence Committee aide with the basic facts of the upcoming complaint.
The aide told the officer to follow the standard procedure, which includes hiring a lawyer and filing an official whistleblower complaint within the intelligence community. The aide then proceeded to inform Schiff of the conversation but left the whistleblower's identity anonymous.
The bombshell report that the whistleblower and his Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) colleagues actively worked exclusively with congressional Democrats before filing the complaint raises serious questions about whether the complainant followed federal laws providing whistleblower protections for employees within the U.S. intelligence community.
“Before going to Congress, the C.I.A. officer had a colleague convey his accusations to the agency’s top lawyer,” The New York Times reported. “Concerned about how that avenue for airing his allegations was unfolding, the officer then approached a House Intelligence Committee aide, alerting him to the accusation against Mr. Trump.”
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The New York Times noted that the anti-Trump complainant only notified the committee’s Democrats of his allegations.
“The whistle-blower’s decision to offer what amounted to an early warning to the intelligence committee’s Democrats is also sure to thrust Mr. Schiff even more forcefully into the center of the controversy,” The New York Times wrote.
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The new revelations that Schiff and his staff coordinated with the anti-Trump complainant and his colleagues prior to a formal whistleblower complaint also suggest Schiff was less than truthful about his interactions with the whistleblower. On August 28, nearly two weeks before the ICIG formally informed Congress of a pending “urgent concern” whistleblower complaint from an intel operative, Schiff tweeted allegations from the complaint without disclosing their source.
“Schiff was in on it and he lied about it,” a congressional G.O.P. staffer told The Federalist. “This impeachment initiative has as much genuineness as a three dollar bill.”
