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Memorandum Opinion from S. Engel, for the General Counsel, Office of the Director of National Intelligence Whistleblower Complaint on Ukraine (Kelly Smith, comp.) 1 (9/24/2019)

handle is hein.presidents/usgvtwht0027 and id is 1 raw text is: (Slip Opinion) Urgent Concern Determination by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community A complaint from an intelligence-community employee about statements made by the President during a telephone call with a foreign leader does not involve an urgent concern, as defined in 50 U.S.C. § 3033(k)(5)(G), because the alleged conduct does not relate to the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity un- der the authority of the Director of National Intelligence. As a result, the statute does not require the Director to transmit the complaint to the congressional intelligence committees. September 24, 2019 MEMORANDUM OPINION FOR THE GENERAL COUNSEL OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE On August 26, 2019, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Commu- nity (ICIG) forwarded to the Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) a complaint from an employee within the intelligence communi- ty. * The complainant alleged that unnamed White House officials had expressed concern about the content of a telephone call between the President and a foreign leader. According to the ICIG, statements made by the President during the call could be viewed as soliciting a foreign campaign contribution in violation of the campaign-finance laws. In the ICIG's view, the complaint addresses an urgent concern for purposes of triggering statutory procedures that require expedited reporting of agency misconduct to the congressional intelligence committees. Under the applicable statute, if the ICIG transmits such a complaint to the DNI, the DNI has seven days to forward it to the intelligence committees. See 50 U.S.C. § 3033(k)(5)(C). The complaint does not arise in connection with the operation of any U.S. government intelligence activity, and the alleged misconduct does not involve any member of the intelligence community. Rather, the com- plaint arises out of a confidential diplomatic communication between the President and a foreign leader that the intelligence-community complain- ant received secondhand. The question is whether such a complaint falls * This memorandum is an unclassified version of the memorandum with the same title that we provided on September 3, 2019. We have changed the prior version to avoid references to certain details that remain classified.