A round up of recent news begins with a link to a new piece in The Hill by the founders of the NWC. They ask “(N)ow that the impeachment case is clearly headed to a Senate trial, what will become of the whistleblower?”
Time magazine declared public servants the “Guardians of the Year.” Whistleblowers expect blowback. But paranoia about a “deep state” conspiracy has brought much wrath upon those professionals. Previously they were seen, at worst, as bureaucratic or boring. So, a tribute is in order.
There are 363,000 federal workers in the greater Washington, D.C., area. In the first week of September, history turned in the office of one of them. The intelligence analyst who blew the whistle on President Donald Trump had just gotten off the phone with the Inspector General’s office.
The piece quotes NWC chair Stephen Kohn on how the intelligence community statutes were designed to protect both classified information and the whistleblower.
“That’s what’s so significant about the Ukrainian case,” says whistle-blower attorney Stephen Kohn. “Congress specifically said, If you want to be protected under this law, you raise your concerns this way.”
- Over at MSNBC, two more public servants – inspectors for the U.S. Department of Agriculture – came forward on Monday. They have filed a whistleblower complaint with the agency alleging lax pork inspections.
ALBERT LEA, Minnesota — America’s food inspectors are warning that “unsafe” pork is likely making it to consumers under a change in rules for meat inspection.
That change is now set to roll out nationwide to plants that process more than 90 percent of the pork Americans eat.
“The consumer’s being duped,” Food Safety and Inspection Service inspector Jill Mauer told NBC News. “They believe that it actually is getting federally inspected when there’s no one there to even watch or do anything about anything.”
“It’s so hard to go to work without feeling physically sick watching this just happen, unfolding in front of you,” inspector Anthony Vallone said.
- Finally, Tom Mueller, author of “Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud,” talked to the Boston Globe about his reading list.
MUELLER: “The Chickenshit Club” by Jesse Eisinger, which is about the loss of moral courage in the Department of Justice, even before William Barr came along. Another book that deals with the revolving door syndrome between the D.O.J. and major defense law firms is “Too Big to Jail” by Brandon L. Garrett. Then on the military-industrial complex side there’s “Twilight of the American Century” by Andrew J. Bacevich, which is incredibly damning. He’s one of these retired colonels who were senior enough to know the game but never drank the Kool-Aid. I’m not listing very happy, uplifting reading.