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This is extraordinary and incredibly disturbing. The acting DNI is apparently illegally refusing to give Congress access to a whistleblower complaint, which the IC inspector general deemed both credible and urgent. intelligence.house.gov/news/documents…
Needless to say, the whole POINT of the statutory mandate is to deny intelligence officials discretion to keep Congress from hearing whistleblower reports. That would let the people implicated in the report decide whether to bury it.
The statute is not ambiguous. If the independent IG determines the whistleblower complaint is credible, the DNI “shall” transmit it to the appropriate congressional committees, full stop. law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50…
This does underscore how thoroughly ill-equipped our system of oversight & checks is to deal with really pervasive executive branch corruption.
If a presidential appointee simply refuses to comply with the law, and the same president’s attorney general is willing to find some pretext to rationalize that refusal, external oversight bodies are forced to slog through the courts.
