Washington, DC | September 26, 2019 – Earlier this week, the Senate approved by unanimous consent a resolution calling upon the Administration to release the intelligence whistleblower complaint to the intelligence committees of the House and Senate. Yesterday, the House of Representatives unanimously approved a nearly identical resolution. Together, these two resolutions reaffirm Congress’s longstanding bipartisan commitment to protecting whistleblowers and insisting upon faithful adherence to federal whistleblower laws.
Because these resolutions are non-binding, they create no new legal duties. However, already-existing law already unambiguously requires the Director of National Intelligence to release the whistleblower complaint to the intelligence committees, given that the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community has found that the complaint is credible and raises urgent concerns.
John Kostyack, Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center, said,
We are gratified that both houses of Congress have reiterated their support for whistleblowers and have insisted on compliance with the law that protects the intelligence community whistleblower. We urge the Administration to respect the law and deliver the whistleblower’s complaint to the intelligence committees as required. Failure to do so will create uncertainty among whistleblowers about whether the reporting channels created for them by Congress have any value. If our nation ever hopes to address corruption and other serious wrongdoing, we need to protect and reward whistleblowers, not bury their complaints.
For more information, please contact Nick Younger at nick.younger@whistleblowers.org.
