Short answer: NO ONE!
A few days ago, Wing Nut Rag, The Federalist, made an erroneous claim that somewhere “between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings.”
But as The Washington Post points out in the video above, a policy changed, not the rules. There never was a rule that stated whistleblowers must have first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings.
That didn’t stop Gym Jordan from repeating this nonsense on Jake Tapper’s, “State of the Union.” Thankfully, Mr. Tapper quickly corrected Jordan and reminded him, “Experts say it has never been true you need to have firsthand knowledge to be a whistleblower.’
All of this tinfoil hat wearing, wing nuttery prompted the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) to release a statement:
“Although the form requests information about whether the Complainant possesses first-hand knowledge about the matter about which he or she is lodging the complaint, there is no such requirement set forth in the statute. In fact, by law the Complainant – or any individual in the Intelligence Community who wants to report information with respect to an urgent concern to the congressional intelligence committees – need not possess first-hand information in order to file a complaint or information with respect to an urgent concern“
ICIG Press Release: Page 2, Paragraph 2.
Read the links provided above for more information.
