Thread by @mayawiley

Congress & White House have a history of fighting abt what classified material Congress can have on demand. In this case, a fed’l law says that a #whistleblower complaint that the Inspector Gen’l finds “urgent” be sent to Congress Intel Committees. So what is “urgent”?

https://twitter.com/mayawiley/status/1174495681677090816

The federal law defines “urgent” as “A serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of law or Executive order,..., or operations of an intelligence activity involving #classified information...” among other things. This appears to be the relevant part of the #whistleblower story

Congress states “Congress as a co-equal branch of Gov’t, is empowered by the Constitution to serve as a check on the executive...it has a ‘need to know’ of allegations of wrongdoing...including allegations of wrongdoing in the Intelligence Community.” bit.ly/32RviOp

One of the challenges here is that a sitting #POTUS has the power to share@classified information but Congress has the check and balance of determining whether it is an abuse of power and a danger to nat’l security. #SCOTUS hasn’t resolved.

What is painfully clear is that trust has been deeply shaken in our govt thanks to the behavior like hiding the truth, outright lies, self serving attacks on Congressional Oversight & ignoring basic norms #Whistleblower