Did IG ignore the language on first hand information?

Statement from Inspector General office regarding Whistle blower complaint

So here are the facts:

• The form has always included the requirement for first hand information
• The form filled out by the whistle blower also had this requirement
• As of 2019, the requirement changed and is no longer being enforced

So, yes, the Office of the Inspector General is admitting that the form requires first hand information, but that they are no longer following the form in those regards. The logic behind this is that the (first hand information) requirement  should not be enforced, because the statute itself doesn't specifically require it. In other words, the OIG did (as argued) decide in 2019 to loosen their own internal standards for what constitutes a valid whistle blower complaint.



Now the statement from the OIG obviously defends the actions of the IG. The argument is that even though the complainant did not witness the call or see any of the transcripts of the call, that he/she did have what the IG determined to be some peripheral information that was considered "first hand". Apparently that was enough to allow the IG to determine that the complaint was credible and urgent.

Obviously the complaint itself has been released to the public, and obviously the criticism will continue to be that nothing in the actual complaint provides any of the "first hand" information as generally defined by reasonable people. Whatever "first hand" information must have been something relayed from the complainant to the IG outside of what is in the actual complaint (which obviously complicates this from a PR standpoint).

What we do know is that all of the silly arguments from the left about how this has never been a requirement, and that somehow the "right wing" media had been photo shopping or lying about this has once again blown up in their faces. The requirement has always existed as skeptics argued. The requirement was changed as skeptics argued, and the changes were so recent that the form used by the complainant actually still shows that requirement.

Moreover, it begs the question as to how the actual complainant would have been privy to the idea that his complaint did not have to follow the form? It sounds like much of this was an internal discussion within the Inspector Generals office, rather than something that would have been relayed to the intelligence community as a whole. The whole things still reeks of more anti-Trump "resistance".