The Whistle-Blower Knows How to Write | Hacker News Reader

The Whistle-Blower Knows How to Write

nytimes.com

44 pointskawera66 comments

The professor, author of this article, misses the point that the whistleblower is an "intelligence officer". Intelligence officers very regularly write extensive yet concise reports to their leads or higher up management, so it's not surprising that s/he wrote the memo well.

I believe you are interpreting some surprise that is not there. He takes the complaint as an example of good writing and that's it. He does not try to infer anything about the writer from it.

One interesting bit is that the whistleblower law was changed very recently[1] to allow hearsay (not fist person account) in a complaint. Some people (obviously biased) are claiming the complainant had assistance composing the complaint.

Guess we’ll find out what it’s all about soon enough.

[1]according to Repub lawmakers.

Given that the ICIG and DNI both found the whistleblower credible, I don’t really know how to interpret attempts to dismiss it for being a secondhand account as anything other than entirely partisan.

True, but then if this had been the law previously, how would that have affected previous admins?

Probably not very much considering that the lawlessness delta is to blame for this, not reporting requirements.

Since the transcript of the call was released, the attempt to make it something is entirely partisan. Both "sides" are being partisan and trying to make it look like they are just doing whatever is good for the country while the other is in it for themselves.

No transcript was released. A memorandum of the 'recollections of the staff involved' written by the whitehouse describing the call (and widely referred to as the transcript) was released. The actual word for word transcript is still stored in the top secret security system it was moved to when it was obvious there was a problem. No one outside the whitehouse has seen that yet.

If you read the actual released document, it has a huge disclaimer on the first page which states this.

You can see it yourself here https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/donald-trump-ukraine...

> The actual word for word transcript is still stored in the top secret security system it was moved to when it was obvious there was a problem

Is it really? Are you sure you're not confused by articles referring to the same document by different names?

Yes. If you look at the PDF of the "transcript" that was released, there is a note on the document itself that it is in fact not a verbatim transcription, but instead an incomplete reconstruction. It also happens to have ellipsis surrounding Crowdstrike/Biden/server topics.

You are correct that the “transcript” is not a verbatim transcript. However, according to Reuters, it’s likely all that exists at this point ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-t... ):

“[S]tandard practice when a president is talking to a foreign leader is not to make a recording but to have at least two and sometimes more note-takers from the National Security Council (NSC) on the call, a former senior NSC official told Reuters. ...

“Their notes serve as the principal record of such calls, the former official said. He was not aware of any electronic recordings made by the U.S. government on calls between Trump and other world leaders.

“Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Obama presidency, said not only would any so-called transcript be based on notes, but it would also likely be incomplete because the note-takers usually do not include issues that could be controversial if they became public. ...

“A former White House senior official concurred there was unlikely to be a recording.

“‘There’s no physical recording but there are a lot of people listening and taking contemporaneous notes of these calls,’ the official said. ‘When you read it, it looks almost like a transcript.’”

This point of view contributes just as much to the corruption of politics as people who may actually be acting it out, because it implicitly asserts that there are no values in play beyond power.

There may be no way of knowing for sure if anyone involved genuinely holds principles above power. But there are absolutely issues of principle in play, and in a well-functioning representative society, everyone has the privilege of lining up behind principles to give them currency.

Personally, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should be determining benefits offered to foreign nations by recognizable general national interest, not by personal interest, or partisan interest, certainly including tying foreign participation in investigation theater to aid.

Hell, I'm behind the idea that our head of state should have a coherent concept of what the national interest is.

But then again, that'd require voters who have some idea of this. And citizens who have a vision of society that's more than a struggle for status and privilege for those who achieve it.

So, shouldn't you be in favor of the investigation into Biden? Since that is exactly what he did.

"This plane's leaving in about 6 hours. If the prosecutor [investigating his son's firm] isn't fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, got fired!"

52 minutes in:

https://youtu.be/Q0_AqpdwqK4?t=3140

The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was not investigating Burisma, the firm that employed Hunter Biden [1]:

> Mr. Shokin was not aggressively pursuing investigations into Mr. Zlochevsky or Burisma. But the oligarch’s allies say Mr. Shokin was using the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes from Mr. Zlochevsky and his team, and that left the oligarch’s team leery of dealing with the prosecutor.

In addition, the US was not the only government seeking his removal:

> His dismissal had been sought not just by Mr. Biden, but also by others in the Obama administration, as well other Western governments and international lenders. Mr. Shokin had been repeatedly accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his office and among the Ukrainian political elite, and criticized for failing to bring corruption cases.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine...

That's a really low bar, and does not even rise to the level of preponderance of evidence. It might be something that a grand jury might look at, but that's about it.

We have an anonymous whistle blower making hearsay claims, coincident with the allowing of hearsay claims as whistle blower claims.

We have the Speaker of the House instigating impeachment proceedings without following established process of calling a roll call vote. Instead, calling it based on her own authority. This unjustifiable departure from precedent and good governance is really revealing her motivations.

We have Senators Leahy, Menendez, and Durbin leaning on the prosecutor in Ukraine. Are they going to be impeached?

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/5-4-18%20Menend...

We have President Obama doing the exact same thing, leaning on Ukraine.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/double-standards-on-u...

And then there is the behavior of the Bidens, enriching themselves by selling foreign influence.

Obviously, the Speaker can exercise her power and could impeach a president for waking up on the wrong side of the bed as long as she could get enough votes, but that doesn't mean that this is anywhere close to being a wise idea.

> That's a really low bar, and does not even rise to the level of preponderance of evidence.

Really low bar for what? You’re saying “preponderance of evidence” to allude to a burden of proof required for a courtroom verdict. But a whistleblower complaint is basically an allegation; can you name a single legal process where one is required to meet a burden of proof in order to allege wrongdoing?

> We have Senators Leahy, Menendez, and Durbin leaning on the prosecutor in Ukraine.

They were asking the prosecutor to cooperate with an already ongoing FBI investigation. Whereas Trump is asking the Ukranain President to work with the State Department and his personal attorney to investigate a political rival.

> We have President Obama doing the exact same thing, leaning on Ukraine.

This has been misrepresented: the prosecutor the Obama administration (including Biden) pressured Ukraine to oust wasn’t actually investigating his Burisma, the company with which Hunter Biden was involved. In addition, other Western countries wanted that prosecutor removed. [1]

> And then there is the behavior of the Bidens, enriching themselves by selling foreign influence.

Sure, let’s hold Biden accountable for this. But you really want to step into this ring? Trump has repeatedly and flagrantly used the presidency to enrich himself since day 1.

Edit, responded to other unrelated points.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine...

Honest, officer, I heard at the supermarket that my neighbor was engaged in activity that other people have publicly engaged in but I happen to think is illegal. To prove my seriousness, here is a brief prepared by lawyers about my hearsay allegations!

Did you see it? No, but I heard at the supermarket...

If I inform an officer that someone at the supermarket told me they witnessed a murder, I really hope the officer would investigate further even though I didn’t witness it myself.

No, if you have names of people and evidence as to who said what, fine. You can’t expect the police to investigate every overheard conversation, the “murder” for all you know is probably in Grand Theft Auto.

> No, if you have names of people and evidence as to who said what, fine.

The whistleblower went so far as to name the alleged perpetrators. Surely that warrants additional investigation.

We were talking about a hypothetical murder, overheard in a super market not the case in question which obviously must be investigated.

Sure. So in our hypothetical scenario — as in the whistleblower complaint — let's assume that our secondhand informant is able to name the alleged perpetrators and details of the crime, conveying information given to them by six firsthand witnesses. What police officer wouldn't follow up on that?

I really think you might want to reread my previous comment because it clearly states the things you’ve said but disagrees that something overheard in supermarket is evidence worth investigating as context is all important. Thanks!

Honest officer, they just showed me the evidence, admitted to it on television, and gave me an autographed copy of the tape.

Edit: leaving original below to own my words.

Political dialog has become more difficult than ever before, and I don't think it's accidental. That difficulty serves those to whom truth is at best an inconvenience.

It should be focused on facts. Facts should be verifiable.

Being that it's difficult for a human to process multiple things at once, it is important to discuss a single fact at a time.

Since facts are effectively a collection of words, one must then discern what those words mean.

Most of the time we can agree on the general meaning, but the language gives room to nuance, and nuance is guided by intention.

Intentions matter (note the degrees of homicide).

So when evaluating facts we should acknowledge the possible nuances and then look at the probability weighting of each one being appropriate considering environmental inputs.

If one is interested in the truth, then one runs the numbers and accepts the results (or acceptably refines the weighting).

It should be about "winning", it should be about what is right. If it changes the currently held understanding, then it's done its job.

I welcome criticism of this. I welcome the opportunity to discuss opposed-viewpoints on facts, if in a good faith effort to find agreement on the actual meaning of the facts. I will admit failure of any policy action from a pol on "my side". I just want truth.

----------------------- original below ----------------------

I love HN for the intelligent dialog, and it always surprises me that intelligent people can fall for stupid things too (hey, myself included).

@tomohawk, your whataboutisms are not accurate, and I would be happy do a address a single element of your claims (to avoid the fact distraction technique).

Warning: we are in politics land on HN.

This is a well written comment and should not be downvoted. The downvoting button is not for disagree (which I do). If you have a problem with what tomohawk wrote I’d suggest writing a comment so we can benefit from your analysis.

I think the problem people have is that below the second paragraph, it’s entirely whataboutism that distracts from the discussion rather than adds to it.

Whataboutism would be bringing up something like President Obama directing hundreds of billions of dollars to the Iranian government and saying this really doesn't compare.

The provided examples are related to previous activities by high government officials in regards to Ukraine, indicating a pattern of activity between the officials of both states. Does the current presidents behavior fall outside of this? And the Biden's behavior is part of the whole issue. Is a president wrong to, as part of the treaty signed by both parties, bring up something that looks pretty rotten? All of these things need to be considered together.

In fact, on HN, downvoting disagreement is perfectly cromulent.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Ironically, what isn't OK on HN is complaining about downvotes; that's in the guidelines.

I’m surprised that I haven’t seen much reported about the Office of Legal Counsel’s memo ( https://www.justice.gov/olc/page/file/1205151/download ). They claimed that the complaint didn’t qualify under the specific whistleblower law in question because the conduct wasn’t related to an ongoing intelligence operation.

So, yes, both the inspector general and the director of national intelligence said they believed the complaint was believable. But OLC claimed that both ICIG and DNI overlooked another important requirement: that the conduct be relevant as far as the whistleblower law is concerned.

In the end, the complaint and call record were released to the public, so it’s a moot point, but the issue bubbled up because the justice department initially refused to hand it over to the relevant congressional committees because they said the complaint didn’t qualify for the whistleblower law.

What’s interesting to me is that so many rebuttals are focused on either procedure (did the whistleblower follow the correct channels, were the rules changed for them) or misdirection (the whistleblower is partisan, the Bidens are the real story here). I suspect that a lot of Trump’s defenders know that his conduct is impeachable, but simply aren’t willing to make the concession to the Democrats.

The lack of reporting about OLC’s opinion only annoys me because even now I see a small trickle of news stories that say that this complaint became news when the justice department refused to send it to Congress the way it was legally required to. Every time I read that, I think “that requirement is disputed.”

Maybe so — but the Attorney General himself is implicated by name in the complaint, so it’s eminently reasonable that people are taking his office’s opinions with a grain of salt. We are truly in uncharted waters here.

OLC doesn’t necessarily have a great reputation. They give legal advice to the executive branch, and attorneys are notorious for giving the answers they think their clients want. OLC is supposed to give the “best reading of the law,” while regular attorneys are expected to push the envelope a little.

Even so, when I read a new story that says the justice department’s failure to act is newsworthy, I shouldn’t have to read the justice department’s website to find out why it didn’t act. A decent news organization would make some effort to ask that question before publishing their story.

Mentioning OLC’s interpretation doesn’t mean I agree with it, either. The Congressional Research Service paper doesn’t call out the issue, but see if you notice a theme in the last few bullet points in the “Potential Questions for Congress” list (last pages): https://fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R45345.pdf .

It’s pretty common for people who have fear of legal repercussion to seek advice before going to authorities.

The idea the law was changed recently has been debunked, by a few analysts online. It looks like an online form may have changed, but not the law itself.

According to Kevin Poulsen, this is a hoax.

https://twitter.com/kpoulsen/status/1177734528833445888

So long as they didn't share the information with anyone not cleared for it, would it matter if they had help with the composition?

This is a very nice, short and well written column by a professor that solely analyses the writing of the complaint.

For a crowd that proud themselves for being objective and analytical, HN has missed the point by a lot here.

I also noticed that he writes dates in the `%d %M` format (e.g. 25 July), which suggests that he is probably an intelligence officer. (I think they said he was an CIA operative?)

Does that make me a spook?

I don't know, are you a spook? Knowing that would help me answer your question.

I'm a person who likes writing in "29 September" format, which apparently suggests that I'm an intelligence officer (when actually I'm neither of those).

It's not the date format that makes you a spook, it's the denial that you're a spook, because that's just what a spook would say ;)

Ah! I can't believe I fell for that!

DD Month YY / DD Month YYYY are pretty common across the federal government

> (I think they said he was an CIA operative?)

Not operative, no.

The NYT revealed (/outed) they are a CIA officer who was detailed to the white house, and further noted that they were a trained analyst (not a field agent) familiar with the european field of US foreign policy.

That's a military date format, not used often in the US in other contexts.

Begins with a conclusion of wrongdoing, but doesn't address alternative possibilities such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which Hunter Biden has likely violated.

If I’m not mistaken The New Yorker magazine had published a “good-feel” story about Hunter Biden and the relationship with his father in August or so, definitely before all this scandal was made public. It looked like white-washing, and coupled with this present whistle-blower thing it certainly looks like a planted story. The powers that be should have tried something different in order to topple Trump, because, as you say, Hunter Biden is definitely a crook and all this will only make Trump come out stronger. If it matters I’m not a US citizen and I’ve never set foot in the States.

This is an argument that is being spoken quite a bit, but misses the point: Hunter Biden may be a crook. It certainly doesn't look like he got his board position on merit. That doesn't mean that President Trump didn't abuse his presidential power for personal political gain. The possibility of either of their corruptions are not mutually exclusive. Though I tend to agree that this is unlikely to hurt President Trump very much, may mobilize his base, and further makes the democrats, in their 2020 campaign, to be dominantly anti-trump as their platform, with their political issues taking a back seat.

Of course Trump abused his position but if the public opinion sees his abuse of power as being “legitimate” then I suspect that US jurisprudence will get to be rewritten in his favor. In today’s day and age public opinion has a much more bigger influence compared to the early ‘70s, for example, when a guy like Nixon could be toppled by the technocracy of that time even though at some point during that scandal he had a 70% approval rate. I suspect that in today’s day and age Nixon would have remained in power with so much public support behind him.

If he hadn't resigned, Nixon would've been impeached by the House, then convicted by the Senate, after which he would've been and ex-President no matter how much the public approved of him. The leaders of Nixon's own party, e.g., Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, Senator Barry Goldwater, and House Minority Leader John Jacob Rhodes, told him he had no hope of remaining President.

If Republican congress members ever turn on Trump to the same degree, he's out no matter his approval rating.

The Hunter Biden story has been in the public since May, just nobody picked it up until recently.

The New Yorker "feel good" story this person refers to, which ran in July (not August), covers Hunter Biden's Ukraine ties critically and at length.

Whether or not Hunter Biden committed a crime, those allegations are already out in the open. Further, they can all be true, and it can still be the case that there was an improper abuse of power for personal political gain.

As for beginning "with a conclusion of wrongdoing", yes: It's a whistleblower complaint. They are, fundamentally, disclosures of what the writer believes to be wrong doing. Leading off with "This appears to be someone doing something wrong" is neither unexpected or improper. The whistleblower could be completely and totally wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that such complaints are defacto accusations of wrongdoing.

So it's now a crime to call out corruption, and ask a fellow world-leader to look into possible crimes committed by a well-connected American citizen?

After being provided with intelligence on Hunter Biden's activities abroad, what course of action should Trump have taken? Maybe he should have done what the previous administration did and hired a discredited foreign agent to produce a fictitious dossier, and then use it as justification to obtain FISA warrants, tap everybody's phones, and make public declarations with unproven allegations (later proven to be false).

I guess President Trump has a lot to learn about how to fight corruption...

That is it? Was expecting more.

tldr: An educated person in an important position that probably involves a lot of writing actually knows how to write well.

I think this whole issue is very important, but there really are some extreme acrobatics going on to fill every possible moments with coverage. Next up: rumors say the whistle blower went to college; eats food; breathes air.

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