Ethics in Government

For John, BLUF:  The convolutions in DC can be read at several levels.  Charlie Dunlap gives us a couple most commentators don't expose.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A question for America:  should a CIA official ever be obliged to face the public?

From The Lawfire Blog, by Prof Charlie Dunlap, JD, 1 October 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

The recent events that have produced the impeachment inquiry have generated some questions to ponder:  should those who classify themselves as whistleblowers always be entitled to have their identity kept from the American people?  Do the principles of transparency, accountability, and fundamental fairness in cases of enormous import to a democracy mean that sometimes the public must be allowed to assess the credibility of an accuser?

A devil’s advocate might provocatively put the key question this way:  should Americans permit an officer of a secret intelligence agency to exploit his or her access to sensitive, non-public matters to collect information against a U.S. citizen without seeking the normal approvals for doing so, and thereafter be able to remain in the shadows even when the product of his probe is used in an effort to unseat an elected American who has sharply criticized the intelligence agency that employs the accuser?

In unpacking these issues let’s also ask ourselves: are there unique considerations when the informer is an official of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (an organization which says its “mission is to collect information related to foreign intelligence and foreign counterintelligence,” and whose charter generally prohibits the domestic collection of information against American citizens) and is someone who did not witness the events in question but instead collected information from others about them and his U.S.-person target?

Does an “investigative mission” which collects information on a US citizen and was “carried out in stealth” and “behind the scenes” effectively constitute spying?

Officially, the CIA insists that “Myth 1” about the agency is that it “spies on US citizens.”

Yet the Washington Post, says the CIA officer who in this instance “has almost single-handedly set in motion the gears of impeachment,” initiated what the Post characterized as his “investigative mission” with information, he says, he was able to collect in the “conduct of…[his] official duties.”  Notably, the Post says that the officer’s investigation was “carried out in stealth.”

That “stealth” operation, the officer’s own report indicates, lasted a period of at least four months and involved collecting and analyzing reports from what he says are “multiple U.S. Government officials.”  The Post claims the CIA official “moved swiftly behind the scenes to assemble material from at least a half-dozen highly placed — and equally dismayed — U.S. officials,” and then “wove their accounts with other painstakingly gathered material” to create his allegations.

Clearly, the CIA operative – employing “stealth” and operating “behind the scenes” – conducted an extensive collection of materials in his investigation of a U.S. citizen, so decide for yourself if that is effectively “spying.”

And there is more at the link.

A lot to think about.

Regards  —  Cliff