CIA intercepted whistleblower email meant for US Senator
A new report alleges that the Central Intelligence Agency intercepted a whistleblower email addressed to a member of the U.S. Congress, raising serious questions about the integrity of the system in place for whistleblowers to safely reveal wrongdoing.
McClatchy DC reports on a whistleblower email about the failure of the CIA to investigate claims of retaliation against whistleblowers.
The retaliation came in the form the CIA delaying the payment of legal fees for those who participated in a U.S. Senate investigation into allegations of torture by members of the intelligence community in the years after 9/11. The CIA eventually paid the fees, but the email at the heart of the scandal alleges the agency failed to properly investigate the claims of retaliation against those who helped the senate investigation.
At some point, and in a way the McClatchy report is unable to concretely verify, the person who is supposed to investigate claims of retaliation, David Buckley, found out that he was accused of failing to do his job, and properly investigate claims of retaliation. After finding out he was accused of failing in this crucial way, Buckley went over the head of the person who wrote the email to U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, in what appears as an effort to save his own job.
Because the contents of all these communications are classified, it is hard to say exactly what transpired. For this reason, Senator Grassley even asked the CIA to declassify notifications and communications he and the Senate Intelligence Committee received about the email and the subsequent actions taken by those involved.
Citing "strong public interest," Grassley asked the communications, "be declassified as soon as possible so that the serious policy implications and potential Constitutional issues that they raise can be debated publicly."
