{"id":73640,"date":"2019-10-01T18:14:43","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T22:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=73640"},"modified":"2019-10-01T18:14:50","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T22:14:50","slug":"the-daily-gouge-archive-monday-september-30th-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=73640","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge Archive, Monday, September 30th, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s September 30th, 2019…but before we begin, here’s an actual posting on Facebook<\/em>\u00a0Marketplace<\/em> from our brother-in-law Brutus we’ve declared an instant classic:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Truer words were never written!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, here’s The Gouge<\/em>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

First up, writing at\u00a0The Federalist<\/em>, Sean Davis details how Deep Staters in the…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement Of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/h1>\n

Federal records show that the intelligence community secretly revised the formal whistleblower complaint form in August 2019 to eliminate the requirement of direct, first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/h3>\n

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“…The brand new version<\/em><\/span> of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public<\/span><\/em> until after<\/span><\/em> the transcript of Trump\u2019s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only \u201cheard about [wrongdoing] from others<\/em><\/span>.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

…The Ukraine call complaint against Trump is riddled not with evidence directly witnessed by the complainant<\/em><\/span>, but with<\/span>\u00a0repeated references to what anonymous officials allegedly told the complainant<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>: \u201cI have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials,\u201d \u201cofficials have informed me,\u201d<\/span> \u201cofficials with direct knowledge of the call informed me,\u201d \u201cthe White House officials who told me this information,\u201d<\/span> \u201cI was told by White House officials,\u201d \u201cthe officials I spoke with,\u201d<\/span> \u201cI was told that a State Department official,\u201d \u201cI learned from multiple U.S. officials,\u201d<\/span> \u201cOne White House official described this act,\u201d \u201cBased on multiple readouts of these meetings recounted to me,\u201d<\/span> \u201cI also learned from multiple U.S. officials,\u201d \u201cThe U.S. officials characterized this meeting,\u201d<\/span> \u201cmultiple U.S. officials told me,\u201d \u201cI learned from U.S. officials,\u201d<\/span> \u201cI also learned from a U.S. official,\u201d \u201cseveral U.S. officials told me,\u201d<\/span> \u201cI heard from multiple U.S. officials,\u201d and \u201cmultiple U.S. officials told me.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The repeated references to information the so-called whistleblower never witnessed clearly run afoul of the original ICIG requirements<\/em><\/span> for \u201curgent concern<\/span><\/em>\u201d submissions.<\/span> The change to the \u201curgent concern\u201d submission form was<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0f<\/strong><\/em>irst highlighted on Twitter by researcher Stephen McIntyre<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The complainant also cites publicly available news articles as proof of many of the allegations<\/span><\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was not a direct witness to most of the events<\/em><\/span>\u201d characterized in the document, the complainant confessed on the first page of his August 12 letter, which was addressed to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the respective chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees. Hearsay is generally inadmissible<\/em> as evidence<\/em><\/span> in U.S. federal and state courts since it violates the constitutional requirement that the accused be given the opportunity to question his accusers<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The anti-Trump complaint also made several false claims<\/em><\/span> that have been directly refuted and debunked<\/em><\/span>. While the complaint alleged<\/em><\/span> that Trump demanded that Ukraine physically return multiple servers potentially related to ongoing investigations of foreign interference in the 2016 elections, the transcript of the call between Trump and Zelensky shows that\u00a0such a request was never made<\/a><\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The complainant also falsely alleged<\/em><\/span> that Trump told Zelensky that he should keep the current prosecutor general at the time, Yuriy Lutsenko, in his current position in the country. The transcript showed\u00a0that exchange also did not happen<\/a><\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally,\u00a0the complaint falsely alleged<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0that T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, a U.S. State Department official, was a party to the phone call between Trump and Zelensky.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was told that a State Department official, Mr. T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, also listened in on the call,\u201d the complaint alleged<\/em><\/span>.\u00a0Shortly after the complaint was released, CBS News reported that\u00a0Brechbuhl was not on the phone call<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In a legal opinion that was released to the public along with the phone call transcript, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) determined that the complainant\u2019s submission was statutorily deficient and therefore was not required to be submitted to Congress<\/em><\/span>. The White House nonetheless declassified and released the document to Congress late Wednesday evening<\/span><\/strong><\/span>…”<\/p>\n

What,…yet another coincidence which plays in favor<\/em><\/span> of Progressives and against<\/em><\/span> Trump?!?<\/strong><\/p>\n