woodguru

Nobody takes a whistle blower complaint at it's face value, takes the word of the WB. It doesn't make any difference whether its first, second, or third hand information. The person who actually may be the one who directly heard something may not be in a position to lose their job, or the nature of the leak might point directly to someone.

When I had a company that had 145 employees, I'd have an employee come to me saying that they were seeing something that was wrong, but that they feared that if they squealed the situation off the manager involved would retaliate and fire them. I made promises that if I was told something that I would not go to the manager in a way that pinpointed where the information came from, I would come up with my own way of finding it out. There were times when I'd have to wait and "discover" wh**ever it was on my own.

As the owner of a company I had a need to know when someone was doing something wrong that affected my company or was costing me money or affecting quality control issues. The country has a need to know if high up people including the president are breaking the law or violating the public or foreign entity's trust.

When someone has the courage to come forward with what the public has a right and need know, the law provides guidelines that include anonymity and protection against retaliation.

The law also provides a mechanism to protect the person being reported. The report goes to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who verifies and checks out the report and decides whether it is important enough and how seriously to take it. If a frivolous or partisan thing were reported against the president it would be f**gged as irrelevant if that were the case.

By the time one of these reports has been checked out and verified it has a different life and set of facts. It no longer centers around the whistle blower, he's no longer needed as a witness, chain of evidence no longer matters, in fact any leaking about something illegal is a good thing. This is not a court of law and evidence that would indicate betrayals of public trust, while not illegal in the sense of a criminal prosecution, can be 100% indicative of the need for an impeachment.

Trump says he deserves a x=chance to confront his accuser...no he doesn't, it doesn't matter any more what he says, this is not a court of law trial, and he is well and truly busted for unacceptable actions and coverups.