In violation of federal law, the acting director of national intelligence is declining to testify before the House Intelligence Committee after refusing to turn over whistleblower information to the panel.
The original whistleblower complaint was made on Aug. 12 by someone within the intelligence community regarding the conduct of someone "outside the intelligence community." The inspector general for the intelligence agencies determined the complaint to be "credible and urgent," but acting intelligence chief Joseph Maguire declined to share the complaint with Congress within the seven-day period mandated by the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. In a letter obtained by The New York Times, the general counsel of the Office of Director of National Intelligence told House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff that he determined that the complaint did not meet the legal definition of "urgent concern" that requires the complaint to be relayed to Congress. ODNI has also informed the Intelligence panel that the complaint includes "potentially privileged matters," a reference that often involves matters related to the president.
Maguire's failure to disclose the information led Chairman Schiff to send a letter to Maguire last week informing him that he must either turn over the complaint by Sept. 17 or appear before the committee on Sept. 19 to explain why he had failed to comply with the federal statute.
In the same letter, Schiff noted that Maguire had departed from protocol by consulting with the Department of Justice on the matter and had "refused to affirm or deny" whether the White House had been involved in his decision.
“The committee can only conclude, based on this remarkable confluence of factors, that the serious misconduct at issue involves the President of the United States and/or other senior White House or Administration officials," Schiff wrote.
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