Have you walked by a TV and seen the word “whistleblower” on the banner at the bottom of the screen? Or watched/read the news and noticed that that word was popping up a lot? If so, and you do not really know what a whistleblower is, this is the article for you! And if you are not much of a news consumer, I have included a brief summary of what the initial whistleblower complaint detailed, so that you can understand what your peers or professors are talking about when they bring up the complaint in conversation.
Amidst the consistently tumultuous chain of events that has characterized the Trump presidency, a new scandal has taken center stage in the past couple of months. On August 12th, 2019, a whistleblower came forward to report that he or she had firsthand knowledge that Donald Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.” The whistleblower’s complaint detailed President Trump’s violations of the Executive Order, discussing Trump’s exhortation that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy investigate Joe Biden’s son, illegally inspect U.S. intelligence to prove that Russian interference in the 2016 election had initiated within Ukraine, and communicate with Barr and Giuliani to further discuss these matters. In addition, the report discloses how, in the days following this inappropriate call, White House officials attempted to disappear the call transcript.
After listening to and reading several news reports about the impeachment inquiry and the inflamed denials (on the part of Donald Trump, in particular) that have resulted from the whistleblower complaint, I realized that I was not fully aware of what a whistleblower was, or who could be one. Because I assume that I am not the only person lacking whistleblower knowledge, and because I think being an informed consumer of the news is important, here is a bit of information that I uncovered in my research.
According to the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower is, “An employee who discloses information that s/he reasonably believes is evidence of illegality, gross waste or fraud, mismanagement, abuse of power, general wrongdoing, or a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety.” Any employee can file a whistleblower complaint about their employer if they feel that the employer is violating the law, or behaving in a way that is putting others at extreme risk.
In the case that an employee decides to file a whistleblower complaint, they can do so online, via fax or email, in person, or over the telephone. However, if the matter contained within the report is classified, as it was in the case of Donald Trump’s phone call, there is a restricted procedure that must be followed when filing the complaint. After a complaint is filed the Occupational Safety and Health Act department, if it views the violations detailed in the complaint as being significant, will conduct a thorough investigation complete with witness interviews and more in-depth research into the individual in question.
During the whistleblowing process, an employer’s retaliation against the employee is typically illegal under the Whistleblower Protection Act and the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. However, as most employees in the intelligence community are not protected under these acts, there are cases in which members of this community can face legal consequences.
In the case of the August whistleblower complaint, due to the classified information that it detailed, the document was first submitted to the Inspector General, then passed on to the Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, but Maguire failed to turn the complaint over to Congress in the allotted time frame, citing executive privilege.
As the controversy over the whistleblower complaint and subsequent impeachment inquiry continues to grow, keep in mind that the whistleblower, whoever they might be within the intelligence community, acted out of duty to the nation when submitting the complaint, but still might have to face legal and social consequences.
If you have further interest in what it feels like to be a whistleblower, I highly recommend checking out Daily Beast’s article entitled, “I Was a Whistleblower: The Trump Whistleblower is About to Go Through Hell”.