Judge Says Trump Can’t Strip Lawyer’s Security Clearance Just Because He Doesn’t Like His Clients

Legal Issues

from the because-of-course-you-can't dept

Donald Trump has an enemies list. Not a secret one, either. It’s actually been published at the official White House website. But he has plenty of enemies beyond that. And ever since his return to office, he’s been engaged in acts of vengeance. Federal agencies have been purged of anyone who isn’t a MAGA loyalist. Journalistic entities have been threatened, sued, and — most recently — been placed under the “leadership” of people who serve Donald Trump, rather than their actual employers or the journalistic standards they’re supposed to uphold.

He’s also gone after a number of law firms who’ve represented people suing Trump and the administration. He’s also targeted lawyers who represent people he personally doesn’t care for, like the FBI agents who investigated the January 6, 2021 insurrection attempt by his supporters.

Mark Zaid has represented a number of clients, including national security whistleblowers during the Obama years. In contrast to Trump’s opportunistic thuggery, Zaid doesn’t have a political ax to grind when he chooses to represent someone in court. All Trump has is political axes in need of grinding. Since he can’t fire Zaid directly, he’s doing what he can to make it more difficult for him (and others on the president’s neverending shitlist) to represent current and former government employees.

Eisen and Zaid, the lawyers representing the FBI agents, themselves became the target of a presidential memorandum in March that revoked their access to classified material. Both have aggravated Trump for years. Zaid represented a whistleblower who helped bring about Trump’s first impeachment.

Zaid sued to restore his security clearance in May, in a case that is ongoing. His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, is a high-profile defense attorney who left Winston this spring in order to form his own firm. Lowell said his goal is to represent those “unlawfully and inappropriately targeted.” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a fraud judgment against Trump and is now a target of his DOJ, was one of his first clients.

Fortunately for Zaid, he’s one step closer to getting his security clearance restored. DC federal court judge Amir Ali says [PDF] what’s immediately obvious: the president can’t just revoke security clearances simply because he doesn’t like a lawyer’s clientele. That’s a violation of First Amendment rights and that still doesn’t fly here in the US, despite Trump’s continuous efforts to make every right dependent on loyalty to the president.

It’s so obviously a violation of rights that even the government doesn’t try to rebut Zaid’s main argument. Instead, it tries to argue that the president is pretty much a king and can do whatever he wants when it comes to determining who gets to do what in this nation:

This case involves the government’s retribution against a lawyer because he represented whistleblowers and other clients who complained about the government, carried out by summarily canceling the attorney’s security clearance without any of the process that is afforded to others. In defending its actions, the government does not meaningfully rebut that the decision to deny this attorney the usual process was based on his prior legal work for clients adverse to the government.

The government instead asserts, emphasizes, and repeats that the executive branch has exclusive power to determine who meets the requirements for security clearance. […] That is well established, but does not answer the question in this case. It is equally well established that the executive branch’s exclusive power to determine who satisfies the eligibility criteria for security clearance does not mean it can conduct that determination however it wants and free from the Constitution’s limits.

If you need more evidence that this is nothing more than blatantly unconstitutional vindictiveness, you’ll find it in Judge Ali’s 39-page opinion. Zaid, who has held a security clearance for the last two decades, first angered Trump in 2019, bringing forward a whistleblower complaint that led to the House filing articles of impeachment. Here’s how Trump reacted to that:

When Zaid’s representation of the whistleblower became public, the President publicly rebuked him, including by showing Zaid’s photo at a 2019 rally and calling him a “sleazeball.” The President later said: “And [the whistleblower’s] lawyer, who said the worst things possibly two years ago, he should be sued and maybe for treason. Maybe for treason, but he should be sued. His lawyer is a disgrace.”

Here’s how things were going earlier this year, when Zaid again crossed Trump’s angry radar:

More recently, in February 2025, Zaid filed a lawsuit against the government on behalf of several Federal Bureau of Investigation employees to protect them from being targeted for work they did investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Four days later, a news source reported the President was planning to target Zaid, among others, by revoking his security clearance. The next month, the Director of National Intelligence announced on social media that she had revoked Zaid’s and others’ security clearances and access to classified information. And on March 22, 2025, the President issued a presidential memorandum to executive agency heads that included Zaid among a list of people for whom access to classified information was “no longer in the national interest.”

The government insisted the administration has the unilateral right to revoke clearances. The court agrees… to a point. But when clearances are revoked (or even denied), there’s a process involved that allows the person on the receiving end of this clearance stripping to appeal or challenge that decision. At the very least, they’re allowed to ask why. This summary stripping of security clearance from multiple lawyers at one time is obviously a rights violation (due process) that compounds the other alleged rights violation (free speech).

Based on the preliminary injunction record, the court finds the government has not conducted any individualized assessment of Zaid’s eligibility for security clearance. It instead denied Zaid the process and individualized assessment afforded to others because of his prior representation of whistleblowers and other clients in matters that were adverse to the government.

[…]

Because Zaid’s claims all challenge the legality of revoking his security clearance without meaningful process, they go only to the “methods used” to revoke his clearance.

The government pretends this is simply about denying access, which it can do. But it isn’t. It’s about selectively removing access, which isn’t really about the security clearance process, but whether or not the government can use the process to engage in retaliatory action against people it doesn’t care for.

So it tried this:

As mentioned, the government’s principal approach here has been to offer an expansive reading of the cases it likes (Egan and Lee) and to leave out the cases it doesn’t (Greenberg and Rattigan).

And ends up with this after Judge Ali parses the cited cases the government really wishes he wouldn’t have read so closely:

[E]ven the cases the government selectively quotes from recognize the line between “ends and means.

Furthermore, the court practically invites every other lawyer named in the White House memo to get busy suing over their stripped clearances:

The government, second, asks the court to just construe the presidential memorandum as an individualized national security assessment. But the court finds the memorandum was not based on any such assessment. It is undisputed that no government agency conducted an assessment of Zaid’s eligibility for clearance, and the memorandum itself does not purport to make any national security assessment—in fact, it does not mention national security at all. The memorandum instead directs agencies to summarily revoke Zaid’s clearance based on the “national interest,” which courts have consistently recognized as distinct from and more nebulous than a particular determination about national security.

Zaid wins, for now. The government has until December 30 to challenge the injunction. If it can’t raise a better argument than it has here (and there’s no reason to believe it can), Zaid’s clearance will be un-revoked on January 13, 2026. And the others who were targeted by the White House memo need to lawyer up and get their clearances back too. Certainly, the administration will try to get the Supreme Court to undo this, but for now, the clock is ticking.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, donald trump, fbi, january 6, lawfare, mark zaid, retaliation, trump administration, whistleblowers

Filecoin Foundation Ensuring That SecureDrop Can Continue To Help Whistleblowers And Journalists

Privacy

from the some-good-news dept

Earlier this year we were excited to see the Filecoin Foundation give the Internet Archive its largest donation ever, to help make sure that the Internet Archive is both more sustainable as an organization, and that the works it makes available will be more permanently available on a more distributed, decentralized system. The Internet Archive is a perfect example of the type of organization that can benefit from a more distributed internet.

Another such organization is the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which, among its many, many projects, maintains and develops SecureDrop, the incredibly important tool for journalists and whistleblowers, which was initially developed in part by Aaron Swartz (as DeadDrop). So it’s great to see that the Freedom of the Press Foundation has now announced the largest donation it has ever received, coming from the Filecoin Foundation for the Distributed Web (the sister organization of the Filecoin Foundation):

Today, for the first time, that calculus has changed. We?re thrilled to announce the largest grant in the history of Freedom of the Press Foundation that will ensure SecureDrop survives ? and thrives ? for years to come. The Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web ? a new grantmaking organization whose mission is to permanently preserve humanity?s most important information ? is funding FPF at over $1.7 million for each of the next three years, for a total of $5.8 million.

The funding will largely go towards sustaining and expanding our SecureDrop team, funding the development of the next-generation of the system, including exploring a new zero-trust architecture for the decentralized servers. This grant will ensure that SecureDrop will not only be sustainable over the long term, but will be easier to use and hopefully safer than ever. In short, it will have a game-changing impact on how we can build and improve SecureDrop for journalists around the world. You can read about some of our technical plans for the future here.

This is great to see as SecureDrop is another one of those tools that is so key, but as an open source project is often in a precarious position without the financial support to make sure that there is active development.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, decentralization, filecoin, free speech, journalism, securedrop, whistleblowers
Companies: filecoin foundation, freedom of the press foundation

DOJ Makes It Official: No Gathering Of Journalists' Records During Leak Investigation

Journalism

from the your-move,-Congress dept

For years, the Department of Justice has used its bespoke “balancing process” to decide whether or not to target journalists during investigations of criminal acts or to hunt down the source of leaked documents. This was intended to make the DOJ take into consideration the impact on protected speech and press freedoms when issuing subpoenas targeting journalists. Far too frequently, the DOJ has told itself it’s ok to collect journalists’ phone and email records in hopes of identifying the actual targets of leak investigations.

With Donald Trump in the White House (a self-avowed enemy of the press) overseeing a short procession of suck-ups holding the title “Attorney General,” the DOJ seemed to feel the balancing test was more of a suggestion than a rule and proceeded to attempt to acquire journalists’ communications records to sniff out a multitude of leakers.

The first half of this year has been filled with news about journalists caught up in DOJ leak investigations. Freed of gag orders applied during the Trump years, multiple news organizations reported their employees’ phone and email records had been subpoenaed by the DOJ.

There’s a new President in town, along with a new attorney general. And both made statements claiming the DOJ would stop seeking journalists’ records when pursuing leak investigations. Attorney General Merrick Garland also claimed he would support legislation that would block the DOJ from targeting journalists.

We’re no closer to seeing this legislation enacted. But the DOJ has finally made it official: it is abandoning the balancing test and wlll no longer seek journalists’ records in cases like these. Here’s how the Attorney General puts it in the recently-released memorandum [PDF] announcing the change in tactics.

The Department of Justice will no longer use compulsory legal process for the purpose of obtaining information from or records of members of the news media acting within the scope of ‘newsgathering activities, as set out below.

This new prohibition applies to compulsory legal process issued to reporters directly, to their publishers or employers, and to third-party service providers of anyof the foregoing. It extends to the full range of compulsory process covered by the current regulations, specifically, ‘subpoenas, warrants, court orders issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) and § 3123, and civil investigative demands. Further, it applies regardless of whether the compulsory legal process seeks testimony, physical documents, telephone toll records, metadata, or digital content.

There are exceptions, of course. Journalists’ records can be sought when they’re the target of a DOJ criminal investigation. This includes criminal acts not related to their day jobs and also criminal acts committed to obtain government information, like breaking and entering or (one presumes) the number of things considered illegal hacking by the DOJ. The DOJ also has an emergency exception to exploit — one that says the DOJ can ignore this new guidance if demanding journalists’ records is “necessary” to prevent “imminent risk of danger or bodily harm.”

But receiving and publishing leaked documents is not considered a criminal act and the DOJ says as much in its memo.

The prohibition does apply when a member of the news media has, in the course of newsgathering, only possessed or published government information, including classified information.

And the memo reaffirms the AG’s commitment to backing legislation that would ensure this lasts past his tenure at the DOJ.

To ensure that protections regarding the use of compulsory legal process for obtaining information from or records of members of the news media continue in succeeding Administrations, the Department will support congressional legislation to embody protections in law.

So, this is obviously a first for the DOJ. And, of course, the offer only stands for as long as this regime is in power. Legislation could make it permanent, but there are still enough Trump fans littering the halls of Congress who believe to be a journalist is to be innately untrustworthy, if not an actual criminal, so pushing this past these obstacles might be difficult.

And, again, we’re left to speculate who the DOJ believes is covered by this. Is it only members of large press outlets or clearly-defined press entities that are well-established? Or will it cover the constantly-expanding field of citizen/independent journalists who provide the same service, albeit without the masthead? Hopefully, the DOJ will recognize that journalism is an act, not just an occupation, and extend protection to those operating without editors and deadlines.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, doj, journalism, journalists, leaks, merrick garland, records, surveillance, whistleblowers

Add Microsoft And Another Congressional Staffer To The List Of Entities Targeted In Trump DOJ Leak Investigations

Privacy

from the just-waiting-on-the-yahoo!-revelations-now dept

The hits just keep on coming. Gag orders are being lifted or expiring and we’re finding out even more about DOJ leak investigations under Trump. Under AGs Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, the DOJ targeted journalists, Congressional reps… even readers of USA Today.

The DOJ went after journalists working for the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN while trying to hunt down the source of leaks, sending subpoenas to third party service providers hoping to acquire phone records and email metadata.

The most recent revelation exposed the DOJ’s targeting of Rep. Adam Schiff — one of Trump’s many, many punching bags — in a leak investigation. The DOJ sent a grand jury subpoena to Apple, seeking metadata for 109 identifiers, specifically 73 phone numbers and 36 email addresses. The information sought covered not only Schiff but his staffers and family members. Another Congressional Rep, Eric Swalwell, was targeted by the same subpoena.

It appears no third party was left out of the DOJ’s attempt to hunt down leakers. The latest news on the DOJ’s leak hunting pulls in Microsoft.

Microsoft in 2017 received a subpoena for a congressional staff member’s personal email account, a company spokesperson said via email. The staffer hasn’t been identified.

This subpoena came with a gag order attached.

The spokesperson added: “In this case, we were prevented from notifying the customer for more than two years because of a gag order. As soon as the gag order expired, we notified the customer who told us they were a congressional staffer.”

And another two years before it was actually made public. I assume this didn’t seem newsworthy to the staffer in 2019 when they were informed of the subpoena by Microsoft. But in 2021, with news about the DOJ’s questionable investigative techniques breaking almost daily, it apparently seemed relevant enough to bring this to the media’s attention.

Both President Biden and the DOJ have promised to stop seeking information about journalists and their sources during future leak investigations. Presumably government employees like the Congressional reps and staffers are still considered valid investigational targets when the DOJ looks for leakers. Whether this will continue to include family members of government employees remains to be seen.

The Inspector General of the DOJ has opened an investigation into these investigations. This will possibly result in even more information about its targeting of journalists coming to light. Unfortunately, it may also result in an exoneration of the DOJ, as its guidelines for seeking information about journalists were, until recently, pretty expansive. This means the DOJ could cause considerable constitutional trouble without breaking the rules it wrote for itself. If nothing else, we can hope the DOJ’s promise to exclude journalists from leak investigations outlasts the current administration.

Filed Under: adam schiff, doj, eric swalwell, gag order, jeff sessions, leak investigations, surveillance, whistleblowers, william barr
Companies: apple, microsoft

After Multiple Reports Of DOJ Targeting Journalists' Communications, The DOJ Finally Says It Will Stop Targeting Journalists

Legal Issues

from the free-press-(temporarily)-removed-from-the-govt's-shitlist dept

The DOJ — following President Biden’s lead — has declared targeting journalists’ communications is officially off-limits. Biden’s statement followed reports of two separate instances where his predecessor’s DOJ tried to obtain email and phone records belonging to journalists working for the Washington Post and CNN.

More recently, it was revealed a leak investigation instigated by Trump’s DOJ targeted New York Times’ journalists. That one continued into 2021 under new Attorney General Merrick Garland. In that case, the government was seeking the source of leaks involving the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server but was unable to obtain anything after Google challenged the subpoena.

The subpoenas for the NYT journalists’ records were withdrawn by the DOJ hours after that story broke, with Biden’s press secretary claiming the Administration was not aware the DOJ and FBI were still pursuing this information.

As appropriate given the independence of the Justice Department in specific criminal cases, no one at the White House was aware of the gag order until Friday night [June 4]. While the White House does not intervene in criminal investigations, the issuing of subpoenas for the records of reporters in leak investigations is not consistent with the President’s policy direction to the Department, and the Department of Justice has reconfirmed it will not be used moving forward.

This would align the DOJ with Biden’s statement on targeting journalists. But there’s another group of people in need of some protection from the DOJ’s investigative methods: readers of news sites. Yet another DOJ investigation involving journalism was exposed late last week. In that one, the FBI targeted readers of USA Today reporting on a child porn raid that ended in the deaths of two FBI agents and the suspect they were seeking. Gannett News attempted to quash the subpoena, noting the FBI had apparently violated the DOJ’s rules on targeted First Amendment activity.

That subpoena has now been officially withdrawn by the DOJ. And the FBI has admitted it was able to identify the suspect it was seeking by using other methods, which does nothing to explain why an agent working for the FBI’s child exploitation task force thought it was a good idea to obtain information about readers of a story where a child porn suspect opened fire on agents (killing two of them) prior to being killed himself.

That last withdrawal accompanies the DOJ’s first public statement on the subject. It appears this DOJ will be the first in a long, long time (or perhaps ever) to respect the First Amendment, rather than look for ways to work around it.

In a separate statement, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said that “in a change to its longstanding practice,” the department “will not seek compulsory legal process in leak investigations to obtain source information from members of the news media doing their jobs.”

He added: “The department strongly values a free press, protecting First Amendment values, and is committed to taking all appropriate steps to ensure the independence of journalists.”

What’s left unsaid here is how the DOJ will define journalism and journalists. There are plenty of independent journalists who cultivate sources and report on events that involve ongoing federal investigations. Leakers will continue to leak and presumably — given Biden’s tour as VP for noted leak-hunter Barack Obama — the government will still seek to identify and prosecute them.

But this is the first public statement made by a DOJ official that says something other than the DOJ will respect free speech rights to the extent its internal guidelines suggest it should. Historically, that range has been “barely” to “not at all.” If the DOJ is serious about respecting these rights, it’s obviously going to make it more difficult to hunt down leakers. But constitutional rights are rights, not things to be set aside whenever they inconvenience federal law enforcement agents. Hopefully, this pledge will last longer than the current administration.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, doj, journalists, leaks, records, subpoena, whistleblowers

Records Show President Trump Loved Going After Whistleblowers Even More Than Obama Did

Free Speech

from the MAGA-by-being-Obama-on-steroids dept

Ah, we were so young then. We excoriated the Obama administration for attacking and prosecuting whistleblowers at a faster clip than any other administration in history.

This happened despite the fact Obama presided over some of the most historic leaks in history — ones that kickstarted changes in surveillance programs and surveillance attitudes. The Obama Administration claimed to be the most transparent ever, but behind the scenes, it worked tirelessly to punish whistleblowers and leakers who were bringing actual transparency to entities that had long resisted it.

The facts about the late, not-so-great Trump Administration are continuing to leak out. And Obama’s enthusiasm for punishing professional and amateur transparency enthusiasts has been outdone by his successor — a man who often engaged in leaking himself through his Twitter account. Here’s Ken Klippenstein with the details:

In 2017, there were a staggering 120 referrals for leak investigations from government agencies to the Department of Justice — higher than any year since at least 2005. There were also 88 criminal referrals for leaking classified information in 2018, according to the document, 71 in 2019, and 55 for the first three quarters of 2020, according to the most recent data available. By comparison, during the Obama administration, there were 38 referrals in 2016, 18 in 2015, and 41 in 2014.

Trump was determined to be everything Obama wasn’t. His efforts often seemed solely focused on overturning everything his predecessor had established. Judging from these numbers, this also includes the number of people punished for daring to speak truth to power.

The Trump Administration always had a problem with leaks. The man who often treated the government as a weapon to be deployed against his enemies directed multiple executive agencies to hunt down those who offended him by doing nothing more than exposing his words and actions.

Enforcement is nothing without deterrence. And even if most of these referrals never resulted in criminal charges or sustained accusations, the message was made clear: fuck with the Prez and his buddies and you’re going to find yourself in a world of hurt.

In its leak indictments, the Justice Department has stressed how it hopes to “deter” further leaks, as it did in its 2019 indictment of military intelligence analyst Henry Kyle Frese, accused of leaking classified information to two reporters. That deterrence also has a political dimension: As The Intercept has reported, most leaks prosecuted by the Trump administration have pertained to the Russia investigation.

This may only detail “referrals,” but every referral is a chance to prosecute. That most of these referrals never resulted in criminal charges indicates how baseless they were, rather than how receptive the Trump Administration was to additional accountability.

And for those of you who focus on the fact that these were “leak” investigations rather than the retaliatory targeting of whistleblowers who chose to work within the system, I’ll just point out two things:

First, leaking works better than whistleblowing because it doesn’t give the chain of command a chance to bury unfavorable facts.

Second, the Trump Administration — like the one before it — engaged in retaliation against whistleblowers who chose to follow the rules, suggesting the better route is to get the information to reporters who will expose wrongdoing, rather than be buried along with their objections.

And while we’re burying Trump for being worse on issues we routinely excoriated Obama for, let’s not forget his administration was particularly enthusiastic about extrajudicial killings. Obama’s position as King of the Drone Strikes has been usurped by one of the worst presidents in history.

In 2019, air strikes from the US and its allies in Afghanistan killed 700 civilians, more than in any other year since the beginning of the war in 2001 and 2002, according to new research from Brown University’s Cost of War project.

The new data casts light on US President Donald Trump’s aerial warfare policies across the Middle East and in countries neighbouring the region, which have become less restricted and more opaque.

The report chronicled the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan from US and Afghan air strikes over the past three years.

“From 2017 through 2019, civilian deaths due to US and allied forces’ airstrikes in Afghanistan dramatically increased,” the report said.

So, not only were we killing more people based on metadata than ever before, we’ve been killing more innocent people than ever before. GOD BLESS THE USA.

We’ll see what Biden does with his first term in office. Despite running as the anti-Trump, Biden has shown no less enthusiasm for participating in forever wars. We may finally have someone who acts like a statesman, rather than a petulant child, in office. But that doesn’t mean we, as a constitutional republic, can’t still be as awful as ever.

Filed Under: barack obama, donald trump, leaks, transparency, whistleblowers

DHS Appears Willing To Violate Whistleblower Laws To Shut Down Leaks

Journalism

from the STOP-LEAKING,-the-leaked-memo-stated dept

This Administration — like the one before it — isn’t a fan of leaks or whistleblowing. This Administration seems to be leakier than most, possibly due to the Commander-in-Chief’s vindictive shit-canning of anyone insufficiently deferential. When distrust abounds, the leaks will flow.

The Administration would like these leaks to stop. To accomplish this, it has tried several things — most of them legally-questionable. During his stint at the DOJ, Jeff Sessions suggested subjecting every National Security Council staffer to a polygraph test to sniff out who had leaked transcripts of Oval Office phone calls. The State Department issued a memo warning its employees about the dangers of leaking, including the possibility of prosecution. The memo against leaks was promptly leaked. The DHS has decided to focus its attention on exterior “threats:” namely, journalists who publish leaks. The First Amendment is apparently secondary to leak stoppage.

The DHS is still struggling with leaks. And it’s struggling to contain its struggles with leaks. Earlier this month, a memo demanding employees report leaks, leakers, and anything else they might think is suspicious was leaked to journalists.

Randolph D. “Tex” Alles, a senior DHS official, emailed all employees on Tuesday warning them to be careful handling “all classified, controlled unclassified, and draft information” and that unauthorized disclosures — whether deliberate or inadvertent — risked violating agency policy and potentially federal law. Alles sent the email after “sensitive but unclassified” information had been shared with “external entities.”

Reporter Ken Klippenstein also received a copy of the leaked memo. His “copy” was two screenshots apparently taken by a DHS employee.

So far, we have a leaky DHS, an attempt to plug leaks, yet another leak, and, two weeks later, claims the leaked anti-leak memo is actually illegal. Citing Klippenstein’s October 13 tweet, the American Federation of Government Employees (the largest federal employee labor union) says the memo issued by DHS Under Secretary Randolph Alles violates the law.

We are writing to seek your reconsideration of a recent directive that illegally stifles guaranteed whistleblower rights of its employees. (Exhibit A) This action is a crude violation of the Whistleblower Protection Act and appropriations provisions that shield DHS employees’ free speech rights and must be remedied immediately.

Exhibit A is Klippenstein’s tweet. The letter also refers to Buzzfeed’s reporting on the same memo from Alles.

DHS officials are apparently willing to violate the law to shut down leaks. That’s why the agency’s targeting of journalists wasn’t shut down while it was still just a bad idea. I doubt the DHS will rescind this memo without a court order or Congressional investigation, but it’s safe to say threatening to violate the law isn’t going to do much to deter future leaks or whistleblowing. The DHS’s problems with leaks will continue.

Filed Under: dhs, doj, leaks, whistleblowers

Donald Trump Fires Inspector General Who Brought Ukraine Phone Call Whistleblower Complaint To Congress

Failures

from the just-more-retaliation-targeting-the-proper-channels dept

No one really needs to wait until Friday afternoon to bury bad news. Not these days when bad news is all we seem to have, occasionally mixed with even worse news. But the White House remains the White House, so the time-honored process of dumping stuff you want to stay out of the headlines right before everyone punches out for the weekend remains in place.

The government as a whole claims it wants whistleblowers to report wrongdoing through the proper channels. It then routinely follows this up by ensuring the proper channels remain the best way to see good deeds punished.

The whistleblower that reported President Trump’s inappropriate conversation with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky saw their report buried by the White House’s Office of Legal Counsel. So much for the proper channels. President Trump himself asked for the whistleblower to be outed, undermining the protections the federal government has established to ensure wrongdoing is reported.

The only party receptive to the whistleblower’s complaints has now been fired by President Trump, closing the loop on the White House’s retaliatory actions.

President Donald Trump on Friday fired Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who had told Congress about the whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s impeachment, the President told Congress in a letter obtained by CNN.

So, there’s another spot open in the administration — one that will probably be filled by an underqualified suck-up, rather than someone who can actually do the job. Trump’s faith in appointees often appears to be directly related to how good they make him look, rather than how well they do their jobs.

“As is the case with regard to other positions where I, as President, have the power of appointment … it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general,” Trump wrote. “That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector General.”

Atkinson’s response letter is worth reading. It makes it clear his firing was politically motivated and had nothing to do with his ability to carry out his duties.

It is hard not to think that the President’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial Inspector General, and from my commitment to continue to do so.

More of the same from this administration, which isn’t all that different from the actions of the administrations that preceded Trump’s. Whistleblowers get punished. Those aiding whistleblowers in their efforts by following the law are also retaliated against with alarming frequency.

This is what whistleblower laws are supposed to deter. But they’re ultimately toothless, especially when it comes to presidential appointees who can be hired and fired at will. Since the protections only go so far, whistleblowers are likely to be deterred by appointees inhabiting the “proper channels,” who may selectively bury reports to ensure their own employment continues. Those that do pass on information that will displease the administration put their own necks on the line, and that’s the sort of ideal that rarely has a 100% participation rate in Washington, DC.

It would be nice if these protections — and the rules against retaliation — were respected across the board. But they’ll never be. They’ll only be used when they’re politically expedient.

Filed Under: donald trump, friday night massacre, inspector general, leaks, michael atkinson, retaliation, whistleblower protections, whistleblowers