Inspector General Complaint Alleges Illegal Donations May Have Been Made to Whistleblower
Here’s a whistleblower liberals aren’t going to like at all.
A complaint filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General is charging that the “whistleblower” at the heart of Democratic efforts to impeach President Donald Trump has used a GoFundMe page to illegally raise nearly a quarter-million dollars, according to Fox News.
And since the donations are mostly anonymous, there’s no telling where the money came from, or even if it’s all from American citizens.
Anthony Gallo, the attorney representing the party who filed the complaint, declined to identify the individual but told Fox that his client holds a top-level security clearance and is worried that donation regulations are being disregarded in a case that could upend the presidency.
“I have not seen anything on this scale,” Gallo, the managing partner of Tully Rinckey PLLC, a law firm with offices in Washington and throughout the country, said, according to Fox.
“It’s not about politics for my client — it’s whistleblower-on-whistleblower, and [my client’s] only interest is to see the government ethics rules are being complied with government-wide,” he said.
At the heart of the new complaint, which was filed last week, according to Fox, is the GoFundMe page established to raise funds for the “whistleblower” whose complaint about Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky touched off the impeachment effort in the House of Representatives.
As of Tuesday morning, the page had raised more than $227,000 of its goal of $300,000.
While the GoFundMe page specifies that donations “will only be accepted from American citizens,” many of the donors are listed only as “anonymous.”
ICIG complaint concerning U… by Fox News on Scribd
The complaint filed by Gallo’s client asked the inspector general to investigate whether contributors included a “foreign citizen or agent of a foreign government,” according to Fox.
The complaint also asked that the inspector general investigate whether donations to the GoFundMe page constitute an illegal “gift.”
In a February memo written to outline what funding federal employees could accept in the event of a government shutdown, the federal Office of Government Ethics wrote that government workers were not permitted to receive a gift given “because of the employee’s official position” or “from a prohibited source.”
The GoFundMe page was established by Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit set up in 2017 by attorney Mark Zaid.
Zaid is the controversial attorney representing the “whistleblower” who, just coincidentally, declared on Twitter in January 2017 — 10 days after Trump’s inauguration — that a “coup has started” against the duly elected president of the United States.
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Andrew Bakaj, the lead counsel in the “whistleblower” case, said all fundraising was on the up and up.
“Any fundraising efforts for the Intelligence Community Whistleblower have complied with federal laws, including ethics requirements,” Bakaj said. “Should any governmental agency properly inquire we would, of course, cooperate.”
The inspector general’s office declined to comment, Fox reported.
President Donald Trump’s re-election team didn’t waste any time spreading the news about the complaint.
Now GOP should be able to subpoena the witness. Just don’t refer to him as ‘whistle-blower ‘
— 2BlueDots (@garybob52) November 12, 2019
STOP THE COUP!
— constitution 2A Amendment (@Randy77847389) November 12, 2019
I am hopeful something comes of this, I am more fearful nothing will come of this and go fund me will not cooperate or will have “lost” any record of wrong doing.
— Nursemvan (@nursemvan) November 12, 2019
GoFundMe is not for liars and leakers to spread more lies
— ?? CensorGirl?? (@223334445555ase) November 12, 2019
Where the complaint goes from here remains to be seen.
As Fox reported, the inspector general’s office would likely need subpoenas to determine whether all the GoFundMe page contributions came from American citizens.
One thing is for sure, though.
Liberals love a “whistleblower” who’s giving House Democrats grounds for a trumped-up impeachment case against the president.
But a party who comes forward with a complaint about where that “whistleblower” is raising money isn’t going to be so popular.
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