Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes and Kevin McCarthy (Credit: public domain)
“House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., demanded answers Saturday from the Intelligence Community Inspector General’s office regarding the whistleblower complaint about President Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Nunes sent a letter to ICIG Michael Atkinson raising several questions about the complaint, which ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment, and repeated requests for information that he said went unanswered for months. While several officials met for closed-door sessions to answer questions following the complaint, Atkinson’s testimony has not been released to the public.
“He’s the only one of all the star chamber games that were played in the basement of the Capitol, with the secretive interviews. The only one that’s not released is the one with the IC Inspector General. “That’s unacceptable,” Nunes told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Nunes, along with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., previously had sent a letter to Atkinson in September 2019 in which they raised a number of issues related to the whistleblower’s complaint. Nunes’ new letter claimed Atkinson’s office has not responded satisfactorily.
Among Nunes’ main concerns: the decision to revise a form for whistleblower complaints that removed the requirement of first-hand information in order for a complaint to be relayed to Congress.
Nunes’ September letter had inquired about the update to the form that had left out the first-hand knowledge requirement, and how it had been dated August 2019 despite evidence that it was created on Sept. 24, 2019. Atkinson’s office later claimed that the form had been backdated in error because it had received preliminary approval in August. Now, Nunes is asking that if that was the case, why it took until late September for it to be posted alone.
“What he’s claiming is, essentially, ‘We’re just dumb, we made mistakes, it was a huge mistake,’” Nunes said Sunday. “That’s fine if you want to claim incompetence, but you need to have the documentation, the evidence to prove that you were indeed incompetent.” (Read more: Fox News, 1/12/2020) (Archive)