Intel community: 'First-hand information REQUIRED' for whistleblowers — until second-hand complaint on President Trump, that is

The Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) has quietly removed its requirement that whistleblowers report only "first-hand information," according to a report in The Federalist.

Coincidentally, the whistleblower who recently filed a complaint against President Donald Trump admitted that he or she was "not a direct witness" to the alleged wrongdoings, a stipulation that would have disqualified the complaint under previous versions of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) disclosure process.

A screenshot provided by The Federalist's Sean Davis shows the former version of the whistleblower complaint form, or "Disclosure of Urgent Concern" form, with the following listed under a bold, underlined heading that read, "FIRST-HAND INFORMATION REQUIRED."

In order to find an urgent concern "credible," the [Intelligence Community Inspector General] must be in possession of reliable, first-hand information. The IC IG cannot transmit information via the ICPWA based on an employee's second-hand knowledge of wrongdoing. This includes information received from another person, such as when an employee informs you that he/she witnessed some type of wrongdoing.

However, a new version of the form only requires would-be whistleblowers to check a box saying, "I heard about it from others."

"We don't know when, but the intelligence community in the last few months secretly eliminated the requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. This was the intelligence community that changed their form, and this wasn't uploaded until ... just days before the anti-Trump complaint was declassified and released to the public," Glenn Beck explained on Monday's radio program.

"The document was revised in August of this year, by the intelligence community. Then it was only told to the public just a couple of days before this whistleblower report came out. Now, what was the claim from the media that Donald Trump was trying to hold this whistleblower report back and all of these things were always reported to Congress? Wasn't that the case, that these always went to Congress, that no whistleblower in the history of whistleblowers has ever been held back from Congress?"

Glenn noted the absurdity of starting an impeachment hearing based on "a guy who heard other people talk" about the president's phone calls, and whose assertions about what was said during these phone calls have so-far been proven wrong.

"Our intelligence community requires people who are not dealing in rumors," he said. "There is no reason to talk to this person There is no reason to listen to this person."

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