by Adam Mill
Nobody is above the law, not even the former vice president. Not even a deep state leaker who is using his access to confidential diplomatic information to sway the 2020 election.
Yet this is not the position of the recent leak disguised as a “whistleblower’s disclosure” addressed to Representative Adam (still waiting for “direct” collusion evidence) Schiff (D-Calif.) and Senator Richard Burr (R.-N.C.). The complaint is a tantrum by a self-appointed guardian of elite privilege whose nonsensical monograph seeks to criminalize the president’s inquiry into the 2016 collusion hoax and the apparent leveraging of U.S. aid by Joe Biden to protect his son and his son’s company from criminal prosecution.
I say it is nonsensical because this Ukraine “scandal” is a perfect shoe-on-the-other foot demonstration of the elite’s sacred belief that their hatred of Trump immunizes them from the effects of laws they seek to use as weapons against the president. To paraphrase the famous exchange between Richard Nixon and David Frost:
Question: “Would you say that there are certain situations . . . where a deep-state Resistance bureaucrat can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation, and do something illegal?”
The Left: “Well, when somebody on our team does it, that means it’s not illegal.”
That’s the only way to make sense of how the self-sainted bureaucrat and the press can call what he did “whistleblowing.”
The term “whistleblower” has a legal definition and, for the author of the August 12 letter, it means an employee “who reasonably believes there has been a violation of law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement; waste of resources; abuse of authority; or a substantial danger to public health and safety.”
By contrast, a person who leaks “a difference of opinion over policy, strategy, analysis, or priorities for intelligence funding or collection,” is not a whistleblower.
In this case, the whistleblower told a credulous Chairman Schiff that Trump inappropriately asked the president of Ukraine to “initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden,” and assist in getting to the bottom of a theory that, “Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine.” For more on this, read Julie Kelly’s explosive piece here. These would not be inappropriate requests about matters of public interest. But the questions are being asked about this bureaucrat’s political allies so he leaks to stop the investigation into Biden before it can begin. If he disagrees with the President’s diplomatic and prosecutorial priorities, then he can vote like everyone else in November. It’s not appropriate that he uses his position to coordinate a political hit job with the media and partisan Democrats.
Set aside, for a moment, whether the now-released transcript of Trump’s call with Volodymyr Zelensky backs up these claims. (It doesn’t.) The discussion point concerns whether the “whistleblower” believed in good faith that his claims against the president constitute a violation of law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement; waste of resources; or abuse of authority.
The “whistleblower” alleged that he had evidence of “a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of law or Executive order. Poppycock. The phrase, “abuse” seems like an easy catch-all that could cover almost any complaint about a president wielding power in a way that the bureaucrat finds objectionable. He did not cite any “law” or “executive order,” the President supposedly violated so he’s left to resort to an allegation of “abuse.” But that term defined as an “arbitrary or capricious exercise of power by a federal official or employee” that harms the rights of any person or that “personally benefits the official/employee or their preferred associates.”
How does Trump benefit personally from his request? Because the former vice president is running against Trump, and therefore the president is soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election. Nice try. Joe Biden using his office to protect his son from a corruption investigation is a matter of legitimate public concern. The leaker’s effort to stop that investigation is hardly heroic. His interpretation would act as a get-out-of-jail-free card to anyone who enters the ring as a contender. Let’s flip the script to illustrate: Just imagine that President Trump’s son served on a board of directors for a foreign company. Suppose that when that company came under investigation, Trump ordered the investigating prosecutor fired. Now imagine a President Elizabeth Warren opening an investigation into these actions. Would there be howls of outrage from the media? Of course not.
A president may reasonably follow the evidence to the four corners of the earth to fulfill his duty to enforce and uphold the law. Arguably, it is the leaker who is using his official position to interfere with the 2020 election by releasing and spinning this non-crime information to the public.
Under the Hatch Act, “[a]n employee may not use his or her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.” Because the leaker is a member of the intelligence community, he falls under the definition of a “further restricted employee.” By contrast, the president is exempt from the Hatch Act. We now know that the leaker is represented by partisan attorneys, one of whom donated to the Biden campaign.
So, who abused his official position to benefit a political candidate? If I’m right, that the leaker did, then the real whistleblower in this scenario is . . . me.
This pious leftist deep-state mole claimed that Trump endangers national security. That’s an absurd argument and yet another example of projection.
The “whistleblower” is a member of the Central Intelligence Agency. He has now given Trump reason to cut the access of the CIA the next time he calls a foreign leader. To fulfill his constitutional role as the nation’s diplomat-in-chief, the president must be able to have confidential conversations with other leaders in order to conduct foreign policy. Moreover, he needs to be able to communicate with his advisors without worrying those discussions will be splashed across the frontpage of the New York Times (as leakers have done with the president’s conversations with foreign leaders from Australia, Mexico, Russia, and now Ukraine).
This latest “whistleblower” isn’t a hero or a “whistleblower.” He’s undermining the Constitution and our representative democracy. Responsible intelligence professionals should be outraged by his actions. And it’s chilling to see the CIA remain quiet while it allows one of its own to abuse his access to confidential diplomatic communication. The President, not a CIA bureaucrat, sets diplomatic and prosecutorial priorities. He’s the one the voters put in power. I’ll say it again: I’m blowing the whistle on this bureaucrat who is endangering national security by abusing his access to confidential diplomatic information in order to interfere in the 2020 election.
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Adam Mill is a pen name. He works in Kansas City, Missouri as an attorney specializing in labor and employment and public administration law. Adam graduated from the University of Kansas and has been admitted to practice in Kansas and Missouri. Adam has contributed to the Federalist, American Greatness, and the Daily Caller. Adam’s greatest pride is his 12-year-old son, who shares a love of deep political discussion and hiking in the alpine as often as possible. Adam believes that individual liberty is both the means of obtaining and purpose of collective greatness. Adam may be reached at [email protected]. He is not accepting new clients or consulting arrangements.
