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![handle is hein.presidents/usgvtwht0055 and id is 1 raw text is:
WASHINGTON, DC 20510
September 30, 2019
The Honorable Michael K. Atkinson
Inspector General of the Intelligence Community
1500 Tysons McLean Drive
McLean, VA 22102
Dear Inspector General Atkinson:
According to a recent news report, the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector
General (IC IG) changed its Disclosure of Urgent Concern form, the document by which a
whistleblower submits a complaint that can be transmitted to Congress, to no longer require first-
hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoing.' Specifically, the report described a previous version of
the form, which was approved on May 24, 2018,2 that included a section titled First-Hand
Information Required and stated:
In order to find an urgent concern credible, the IC IG must be in
possession of reliable, first-hand information. The IC IG cannot
transmit information via the ICWPA [Intelligence Community
Whistleblower Protection Act] based on an employee's second-hand
knowledge of wrongdoing. This includes information received from
another person, such as when a fellow employee inforns you that
he/she witnessed some type of wrongdoing. ... If you think that
wrongdoing took place, but can provide nothing more than second-
hand or unsubstantiated assertions, IC IG will not be able to process
the complaint or information for submission as an ICWPA.3
The current version of the form, which notes that it was revised in August 2019, no
longer includes this requirement.4 Instead, this new form asks the individual to check one of two
boxes labeled, I have direct and personal knowledge [of the disclosed information] or I heard
about it from others.5
We are not aware of any federal law, regulation, or internal directive relating to
whistleblowers that requires first-hand information in order for the complaint to be accepted as
credible or receive legal protections, which calls into question why your office used it in the first
place. Accordingly, in order to better understand the basis for why initial versions of the form
required first-hand information, please answer the following no later than October 7, 2019:
'Sean Davis, Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge, The
Federalist (Sept. 27, 2019), https://thefederalist.com/29019/9/27/inte-communi'-secretl,-gutted-requirement-of-
first-hand-whistleblower-knowledae/.
lId.
' Disclosure of Urgent Concern Form - Unclassified, Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence
Commun ity, v/flles/ICIG/Docurnents/Hotine/U m Concern%20Disclo
(last accessed Sept. 30, 2019),
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