Michael Atkinson (Credit: public domain)
(…) On August 26, Atkinson forwarded the complaint to Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence. Maguire, though, didn’t believe it satisfied the requirements of the whistleblower statute. It didn’t concern an intelligence activity, and it didn’t concern a member of the intelligence community; it was about the president.
The Justice Department agreed. “The complaint does not arise in connection with the operation of any U.S. government intelligence activity, and the alleged misconduct does not involve any member of the intelligence community,” the Office of Legal Counsel noted in a September 3 memo. “Rather, the complaint arises out of a confidential diplomatic communication between the President and a foreign leader that the intelligence-community complainant received secondhand.”
Seemingly closed down, the anti-Trump operatives had a back door into official intelligence channels, the same entrance they’d used for the Steele dossier — the media. A September 5 Washington Post editorial reported that Trump was “attempting to force Mr. Zelensky to intervene in the 2020 U.S. presidential election by launching an investigation of the leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.” (Read more: Just the News, 9/27/2020) (Archive)