Expressing Sense of the House with Respect to Whistleblower Complaint Made to Inspector General of Intelligence Community

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 577, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 576) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with respect to the whistleblower complaint of August 12, 2019, made to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the resolution.

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Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the amended resolution, which demands provision to the congressional intelligence committees of a whistleblower complaint, which the Acting Director of National Intelligence has withheld. The law, however, required the Acting DNI to submit it to the committees.

This is a serious matter, Madam Speaker, for IC whistleblowing, congressional oversight, and the rule of law.

Before turning to it, let me express my deep gratitude for the actions of a courageous and anonymous individual in the intelligence community. That person wanted to report urgent, credible allegations of serious wrongdoing and did the right thing by acting in strict accordance with proper whistleblower procedures. These permit classified disclosures to be made to the intelligence committees while protecting national security.

Using that mechanism, in August, the whistleblower made a complaint to the inspector general of the intelligence community. According to the Justice Department's legal opinion regarding the complaint, which it today released to the public, the whistleblower's allegations concerned the content of a telephone call between President Trump and a foreign leader.

The inspector general determined the complaint to be urgent, meaning that the matter met important statutory criteria, and that its allegations appeared to be credible.

The inspector general, months later, would write that the complaint's allegations not only fell ``within the DNI's jurisdiction,'' but that they ``relate to one of the most important and significant responsibilities to the American people.'' That is protecting the United States from foreign interference in our elections.

In strict accordance with the statutory rules, the inspector general passed the complaint and his determination to the Acting Director of National Intelligence. The Acting Director was obligated to forward this material to the congressional intelligence committees within 7 days of receipt, but, in contravention of the law, he refused to do that.

There can be no misreading of the provision imposing that obligation. It says that the DNI ``shall'' forward the materials to the House intelligence committee and also to our colleagues at the Senate intelligence committee.

``Shall,'' of course, means ``shall.'' It does not mean ``can if you want to.''

Despite this unambiguous, categorical directive, the Trump administration interfered with the time-tested process for IC whistleblowing. It would need to resist that process forcefully because, as public reports have suggested, the complaint potentially concerned the same craven abuse of power by President Trump which the public learned about this morning.

I won't recite all the details of this sordid episode. But suffice it to say that documents released today plainly show the President of the United States shaking down his Ukrainian counterpart for a ``favor''-- an investigation by Ukraine's authorities, with close coordination by Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr, into the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the former Vice President himself being a candidate for the U.S. presidency.

So the administration got the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel involved, it got the White House Counsel involved, and, without invoking national security or making a claim of executive privilege, it managed to get a staggeringly flawed legal opinion from the Department of Justice.

The opinion's reasoning is specious on its face. According to the Department of Justice, the whistleblower statute did not apply to the complaint, and the complaint therefore did not have to be forwarded to the committees because the complaint's allegations do not relate to an urgent concern, meaning the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity under the DNI's authority and responsibility.

In this regard, the DOJ observed that the alleged conduct was committed by the President, who is outside of and above the IC. I will point out that that is irrelevant under the statute. All that is required is that the allegation ``relate to'' an intelligence activity within the DNI's purview.

The DOJ also faulted the IC IG, the inspector general, for not citing a statute or policy that gave the DNI operational responsibility to prevent foreign interference in our elections.

Think about that for a second. Have in mind what our country went through in 2016 when Russia undertook covert as well as overt measures to warp the U.S. Presidential election and to sow discord which the Trump campaign welcomed with open arms.

With that recent history in mind, to say nothing of the rules on the books, we can easily dispose of the claim that the intelligence community, as captained by the acting DNI, has no operational role in keeping adversary governments from meddling in our democratic processes. That assertion is ignorant. It is wrong. And it bespeaks a serious misunderstanding about the DNI's authorities and the activities of the United States intelligence community.

The DOJ's cramped view would come as news to President Trump, I suspect, given the executive order he issued in September of 2018 regarding foreign interference in our elections, which requires the DNI, after every Federal election in this country, to assess whether such interference has taken place and to report his assessment to the rest of the executive branch. That sounds a lot like a serious role for the DNI to me.

I imagine the Department of Justice's view would also come as a shock to the acting DNI himself. After all, by statute the DNI is the head of the U.S. intelligence community and the principal intelligence adviser to the President and the National Security Council, among other things. As the inspector general correctly noted, one mission of the intelligence community, among its core missions, is to protect the United States against hostile intelligence activities directed against it. That would include any hostile foreign intelligence activities associated with efforts by foreign adversaries to interfere in our elections.

So I am stunned that the acting DNI would accept legal advice like this, which strains to minimize or ignore the functions and responsibilities that the DNI carries out--or at least I hope--routinely.

I am also stunned that the ODNI would acquiesce in advice that, if permitted to stand, would do such extraordinary damage. By conferring on the DNI the discretion to opt out of what is plainly mandatory, the Department of Justice neutered a statute governing intelligence community whistleblowing; overturned years of consistent practice; and, most damaging of all, called into doubt important protections from reprisal on which this whistleblower relied and other lawful whistleblowers in the IC have relied.

I can only imagine the chilling effect that the Department of Justice's approach will have on lawful IC whistleblowing and thus on the intelligence committees' ability to conduct oversight of intelligence activities.

Madam Speaker, let me end with a note about the state of play, which is fluid, to say the least. I understand that the executive branch may make some of the whistleblower's materials available to the committee this afternoon, but the details remain sketchy, and the committee may not yet receive, in complete and unredacted form, all the information that the acting DNI is obligated to furnish by law, and that we have sought by subpoena. The committee will settle for nothing less.

However, the situation is resolved, Madam Speaker, the House has no choice but to denounce the extraordinary lengths to which the White House and Justice Department have gone to cover up and obstruct.

Madam Speaker, I strongly support the resolution, as amended.
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Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney).

Mr. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, if I understand, the Republican argument is that the document doesn't contain an explicit quid pro quo.

Well, let me remind my friends, you don't need to state an explicit quid pro quo to break your oath. You don't need to state an explicit quid pro quo to break the law. You don't need to state an explicit quid pro quo when you have conducted the quid pro quo, when you have withheld the military aid.

You don't need to state an explicit quid pro quo when you have launched a cover-up by violating the law by refusing to produce the whistleblower complaint as you are required to do.

All of these actions are contained in the recent statements of the President and in the plain language of the White House document. And the idea, the idea that we can't wait a day to get the transcript ignores the fact that, for three weeks, they have ignored the law in producing the whistleblower complaint; and we would not have it ever if it weren't for the actions of the Democrats in this House.

And the talking point that this issue should hinge on the explicitness of the quid pro quo is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide the fact that the President's conduct is a violation of the law, and a violation of his oath, and more than justifies the production of the whistleblower complaint and the launching of an impeachment inquiry.

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Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining for the majority.

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Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Demings).

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Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

It may turn out that this resolution is unnecessary. I understand procedures are being made to provide the complaint, I hope, the full whistleblower complaint, to the Congress and, specifically, to the Intelligence Committee. If that is true, that is a good first step. It is a step, of course, that is remedying the blatant violation of law that this administration engaged in when they chose to stop the transmittal of that complaint to the Congress.

But I do want to take this opportunity to just clear up some things that were said, because these are serious matters, and it is important that the American people understand the truth.

Mr. Scalise came before this body and ridiculed the majority, saying that we had promised a quid pro quo, a statement that is, of course, absurd on the face of it. We made no such promise. In fact, we have spent the day explaining that a quid pro quo is not necessary for the kind of extortion that is evident in the so-called transcript that we received today.

Bribery requires a quid pro quo; if you do this, I will pay you that. Extortion is simply saying you better do me a favor, or else.

So there was no promise of a quid pro quo. Neither is it necessary for this behavior to be well beyond the pale.

And I would remind my friends in the minority that we did not bring this moment upon the Congress. The inspector general came to this Congress of his own volition and, I would add, at significant personal risk, because of his concern over the actions of the administration.

It emerges today that the Acting DNI perhaps threatened to resign his position unless the Department of Justice gave a legal justification for his stance.

So we are not here because we want to be here. The Speaker of the House, as every Member of this Chamber knows, has resisted, until yesterday, even using the word impeachment because she is that focused on the sentiment of the American people and the consequences of that dramatic step.

So I do not want to hear from my friends in the minority that this has been a train that we have been barreling down.

We are not here because we are happy. We are here because there is a genuine threat to this republic and to this democracy. We were brought here by members of the administration who raised their hand and said something is not right.

So this resolution and its contents may be remedied later this afternoon; I certainly hope so. But let's be clear about what really happened and how we got here, because I suspect this is not the final word in this discussion, and the American people deserve to know the truth.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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