The key overlooked detail in Donald Trump’s whistleblower scandal

| 12:45 pm EDT September 19, 2019
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Last night we got a big piece of the puzzle in Donald Trump’s whistleblower scandal when the Washington Post confirmed that the whistleblower complaint was indeed about Trump himself, and that it involved Trump having made a disturbingly inappropriate promise to a foreign leader who was very probably Vladimir Putin. We’re still nowhere near getting to the bottom of this – but there is a key detail that’s being largely overlooked.

The whistleblower complaint was definitely filed on August 12th. It’s believed that the complaint focuses on a phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that took place on July 31st. The complaint was ultimately blocked from release by the office of the Director of National Intelligence. Here’s the kicker.

Three days before that phone call, on July 28th, Trump announced on Twitter that he was ousting his Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and replacing him with a loyalist who was not even in the chain of command. Then, after Trump’s nominee failed, and Coats’ Deputy Sue Gordon appeared set to take over as Acting DNI by default, Gordon resigned on August 8th. The next day it was reported that Coats told her to resign.

We find it difficult to believe it’s all a coincidence that the longtime DNI and longtime Deputy DNI both departed during the exact same timeframe in which a crucial whistleblower complaint was filed against Donald Trump, when everyone involved knew that it was going to eventually fall to the DNI to decide whether to hand that complaint over to Congress. Figure out how these two resignations and/or firings fit with th whistleblower timeline, and you might crack the entire scandal.