After the New York Times reported that the head of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, had been contacted regarding the outlines of the whistleblower’s concerns that Donald Trump had abused his power before it became public knowledge, Trump and his cohorts tried to spin this into a new conspiracy theory against him. Team Trump even tried to assert that Schiff helped write the whistleblower’s complaint. Nope. The thing is – this is the process when someone in government believes they’ve witnessed something gone awry. Via PBS:
The whistleblower who raised concerns about President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine spoke to staffers on the House Intelligence Committee before filing a formal complaint, giving Democrats advance warning of the accusations of wrongdoing that triggered their impeachment inquiry.
The whistleblower, a member of the intelligence community, contacted the committee for guidance on how to report “possible wrongdoing,” according to Patrick Boland, a spokesman for the Intelligence Committee’s chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Boland said that “at no point did the committee review or receive the complaint in advance” and that it is a regular occurrence for whistleblowers to seek guidance from the committee.
“Consistent with the committee’s longstanding procedures, committee staff appropriately advised the whistleblower to contact an inspector general and to seek legal counsel,” Boland said. Other congressional committees follow a similar process.
In a news conference in the East Room of the White House after the article was published, Trump ranted, “He knew long before and helped write it, too. It’s a scam.” The NY Times states plainly: There is no evidence that Mr. Schiff did, and his spokesman said he saw no part of the complaint before it was filed.
