https://ignet.gov/The Inspectors General of the full array of federal agencies on October 22 joined together to renounce the Department of Justice Office of Legal Council's opinion declaring that the Intelligence Community IG's letter regarding a whistleblower should not be forwarded to Congress. Contrary to the DOJ the IG's affirm that as a matter of urgent concern the charge that Donald Trump improperly withheld Congressionally authorized military aid to Ukraine. - gwc
The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) is an independent entity established within the executive branch to address integrity, economy and effectiveness issues that transcend individual Government agencies and aid in the establishment of a professional, well-trained and highly skilled workforce in the Offices of Inspectors General.
CIGIE_Letter_to_OLC_Whistleblower_Disclosure
Honorable Steven A. Engel
Assistant Attorney General Office of Legal Counsel
U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Assistant Attorney General Engel:
Thank you for your interest in the views of the Inspector General community on the concerns raised by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) in response to the Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC) September 3, 2019 Memorandum for the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence (ODNI). That memorandum effectively overruled the determination by the ICIG regarding an “urgent concern” complaint under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) that the ICIG concluded appeared credible and therefore needed to be transmitted to Congress.
This letter from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, on behalf of the undersigned federal Inspectors General (IG), expresses our support for the position advanced by the ICIG and our concern that the OLC opinion, if not withdrawn or modified, could seriously undermine the critical role whistleblowers play in coming forward to report waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct across the federal government. Further, as addressed in detail below, OLC’s interpretation regarding the ICWPA procedure in question, which mirrors the procedure that Congress included in Section 5(d) of the Inspector General Act of 1978
(IG Act), has the potential to undermine IG independence across the federal government.
As an initial matter, we find the arguments and concerns raised by the ICIG in his September 17, 2019 response to the OLC memorandum compelling. OLC concluded that the foreign election interference alleged by the whistleblower was not an “urgent concern” within the meaning of the ICWPA because it did not concern “the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity” under the authority of the DNI. In his response, by describing and citing to
the DNI’s relevant legal authorities, the ICIG showed that the DNI has a broad legal mandate to address intelligence matters related to national security, as well as the specific responsibility to assess instances of possible foreign interference in United States elections and identify, to the maximum extent possible, the methods used and persons and foreign governments involved in the interference. These responsibilities support the ICIG’s conclusion that the protection of federal elections from foreign interference is squarely within the DNI’s “operations”. The legal
authorities cited in his letter also support the ICIG’s determination that the whistleblower raised a claim of a serious or flagrant problem that relates to an intelligence activity within the DNI’s jurisdiction. It surely cannot be the case that the DNI has responsibilities related to foreign election interference but is prohibited from reviewing the cause of any such alleged interference.1 We further note that the DNI has jurisdiction over the handling of classified and other sensitive information. As a result, the whistleblower’s allegation that certain officials may have misused an intelligence system also raises an additional claim of a serious or flagrant problem that relates to the operations of the DNI and therefore may properly be considered an urgent concern under the statute.
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