This revelation does explain one thing that has been bothering me all day: Why didn’t Joseph Macguire bring up the IC regulation that whistleblowers must have first-hand knowledge in the hearing with the House?? Well...he didn’t bring it up because the regulation was changed and there was no longer that requirement! Yet he must surely have known that it had been recently revised, but to my knowledge he didn’t bother telling the House that.
The article claims that the WB form was changed this month to allow WB complaints based on second hand knowledge. If that is true, it seems very convenient for never Trumpers in the spook agencies.
I did not watch every second of MacGuire's testimony, but I suspect nobody asked him about this.
The problem is that the law states that if the complaint is "urgent," it has to be turned over to congress. If we include hearsay evidence, how do you even determine if it is "urgent" or even credible in any way?
No, not quite. The form always allowed second hand knowledge for whistleblowing. Both versions. But the old version of the form is that first hand knowledge was required for the complaint to be deemed urgent. That instruction was removed in the new version of the form.