The letter was made public by House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA). He is locked into a fierce and potentially explosive dispute with an array of forces within the administration to obtain the complaint, which was made through proper channels by an intelligence official last month to the community’s inspector general. Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint was “credible” and “urgent,” and subsequent reporting from the Washington Post found that it concerns a “promise” made by Trump in communication with a foreign leader.
But acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who is supposed to take such urgent complaints from the IG to Congress, has refused to turn over the documents after consulting with the Justice Department about the matter. DNI General Counsel, in consultation with the DOJ, told Schiff and the committee that the law doesn’t require “disclosure of the complaint to the intelligence committees” because it did not concern “allegations of conduct by a member of the intelligence community or involve intelligence activity under the DNI’s supervision.”
View the complete September 19 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.