Inspectors General respond to WH Office of Legal Council

The White House OLC crew up a memo meant to rebuke the Inspector General's finding of a serious and urgent whistleblower claim regarding Trump's cabal's blackmail attempt on Ukraine. Because the Trump cabal has no legitimate claim to deny corruption and foreign election interference collusion, it's go-to response to everything is to attack the process and people that reveal its corruption and criminal activity. That's why AG Barr is investigating the investigators (reportedly now a criminal investigation, a dubious claim leaked yesterday), why they're attacking Adam Schiff and the impeachment process, and why they're attacking the whistleblower.

Following are excerpts of a letter to OLC from a group of 70 Inspectors General backing up the ICIG's findings and actions regarding the Ukraine affair whistleblower:

As an initial matter, we find the arguments and concerns raised by the ICIG in his September 17, 2019 response to the OLC memorandum compelling. OLC concluded that the foreign election interference alleged by the whistleblower was not an “urgent concern” within the meaning of the ICWPA because it did not concern “the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity” under the authority of the DNI. In his response, by describing and citing to the DNI’s relevant legal authorities, the ICIG showed that the DNI has a broad legal mandate to address intelligence matters related to national security, as well as the specific responsibility to assess instances of possible foreign interference in United States elections and identify, to the maximum extent possible, the methods used and persons and foreign governments involved in the interference. These responsibilities support the ICIG’s conclusion that the protection of federal elections from foreign interference is squarely within the DNI’s “operations”. [...] It surely cannot be the case that the DNI has responsibilities related to foreign election interference but is prohibited from reviewing the cause of any such alleged interference.

We further note that the DNI has jurisdiction over the handling of classified and other sensitive information. As a result, the whistleblower’s allegation that certain officials may have misused an intelligence system also raises an additional claim of a serious or flagrant problem that relates to the operations of the DNI and therefore may properly be considered an urgent concern under the statute.

[...]

The two cases cited in the OLC opinion, which narrowly question an IG’s authority to conduct specific regulatory compliance investigations on behalf of its establishment agency, are distinguishable from the ICIG’s ability to accept, review, and transmit whistleblower allegations related to DNI responsibilities.3 They do not undermine the responsibility, under the ICWPA, for the DNI to transmit to Congress what the ICIG determined to be an urgent concern related to the DNI’s jurisdiction.

We also share the ICIG’s concern that the OLC opinion could seriously impair whistleblowing and deter individuals in the intelligence community and throughout the government from reporting government waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct.

Which is in fact one aim of the OLC's memo.

For over 40 years, since enactment of the Inspector General Act in 1978, the IG community has relied on whistleblowers, and the information they provide, to conduct non-partisan, independent oversight of the federal government. Because the effectiveness of our oversight work depends on the willingness of government employees, contractors, and grantees to come forward to us with their concerns about waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct within government, those individuals must be protected from reprisal.

[...]

As Congress has done in every other whistleblower law passed since 1978, it entrusted IGs to play a central role in the evaluation of the information provided. Specifically, the ICWPA requires an IG to make within 14 days a factual determination as to whether an alleged urgent concern provided to the IG “appears credible.” [...] [T]he statute does not authorize the agency head, or any other party for that matter, to review or second-guess an IG’s good faith determination that a complaint meets the ICWPA’s statutory language. Indeed, an earlier Senate version of the ICWPA would have authorized Intelligence Community employees to report urgent concerns directly to Congressional committees of jurisdiction. However, in response to Executive Branch constitutional concerns, Congress ultimately created the current procedure by which IGs would be entrusted with the assessment of the urgent concern and would trigger production to Congress if the IG determined that the allegation “appears credible.”

[...]

In this matter, OLC did not find that production to Congress was limited due to a valid constitutional concern. Rather, OLC substituted its judgment and reversed a determination the statute specifically entrusted to the ICIG because of its independence, objectivity, and expertise to credibly assess the information. In our view, the OLC’s opinion undermines the independence of the ICIG and wrongly interprets the respective roles and responsibilities of IGs and agency heads under the ICWPA. Further, the opinion potentially creates space for agency heads across government to make their own determinations related to IG jurisdiction or reporting. Such a result would be contrary to IG independence and congressional intent in requiring IGs to maintain independent legal counsel and may impede the ability of Congress and taxpayers to obtain the objective and independent oversight they rely on from IGs.

Precisely the Trump administration's aim.