This is crazy. Something extremely odd, dangerous, abusive, and possibly corrupt is going on here by the acting DNI and possibly his superior (Trump? Is there anyone else?). Some quotes from the article, with a few sentences bolded by me:
From
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...schiff-whistleblower-takes-dangerous-new-turn
"The latest development: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has
informed Schiff, the California Democrat and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, that he will
not forward a whistleblower’s complaint to the committee, as required by law.
Yet the legal rationale for refusing to do this appears specious — and raises further questions as to why this is happening at all.
This all started when Schiff
announced that the Inspector General at the ODNI had alerted him to a whistleblower’s complaint that had been submitted to him. Schiff noted that the IG assessed the complaint as “credible.”
But as Schiff noted, the acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has not forwarded the complaint to the Intelligence Committee.
There is a process for whistleblowers in such situations, one that has been
established by federal law. A whistleblower must first submit a complaint to the IG, who determines whether it’s an “urgent concern” and “credible.” If so,
the DNI “shall” forward the complaint to the congressional intelligence committees.
The idea here is that this process allows a member of the intelligence community to raise concerns about potential lawbreaking or other abuses with Congress, so it can exercise oversight over those abuses, while ensuring that classified information remains protected. This is done via the independent inspector general at first, insulating the whistleblower against agency-head retaliation, which is also provided for in the statute.
In this case, Schiff announced,
the inspector general notified the committee that this whistleblower’s complaint did constitute an urgent concern and is credible — yet Maguire still hadn’t forwarded the complaint and relevant associated materials to the committee.
So Schiff
called on the DNI to forward the materials, and if he failed to do that, to appear before Congress on Thursday.
Now Maguire has sent a new letter to Schiff once again refusing to forward the complaint.
...
“The inspector general makes the decision as to whether it’s an urgent concern or not,” [Margaret] Taylor said. “Under the statute as written, the Director of National Intelligence doesn’t have the discretion to
not act or get a second opinion. He just has to forward it to the intelligence committees.”
...
Over the weekend, Schiff
told CBS News that he’d been
informed by Maguire that he was not forwarding the complaint because he is “being instructed not to” by someone “above” him, a “higher authority.” "
