The ballyhooed CIA “whistleblower,” whose hearsay allegations of wrongdoing set in motion the “impeachment inquiry” against President Trump, is soliciting illegal gifts through the popular GoFundMe website, alleges a formal complaint with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.
The law firm that represents an anonymous client, Tully Rinckey, reported the suspected violation of federal law, which prohibits federal employees from accepting certain types of gifts.
So far, the GoFundMe account has raised $227,822 of a $300,000 goal.
The Complaint
The complaint notes that the GoFundMe page was created by Whistleblower Aid.
A little digging showed that Whistleblower Aid’s employee identification number traces back to another outfit, “‘Values United’ which according to the [Internal Revenue Service] is run out of an apparent residence owned by a well-known former State Department official named John Tye.”
As well, attorney Anthony Gallo alleges, “a review of the 2017 IRS 990 for ‘Values United’ shows only $22,398 in contributions but $173,671 in ‘Executive Compensation.’” The 990 also shows assets of $133,106 and liabilities of $752,823 for net assets of -$619,717.
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The attorney filed a separate complaint with the IRS to uncover the link and any financial footsie between Values United and Whistleblower Aid.
As to the gifts for the whistleblower, identified as CIA man Eric Ciaramella, an anti-Trump Obama Democrat, “my client believes that the donations … clearly constitute a ‘gift’ for the benefit of a federal employee,” the attorney wrote. “Alternatively, my client believes that these donations, inter alia, constitute an indirectly solicited gift.”
It should be undisputed that these gifts are for “A U.S. Intelligence Officer,” …. and are only being provided to or for the benefit of the ‘U.S. Intelligence Officer’ because of his prior status, authority or duties associated with the employee’s federal position … working at the National Security Council. My client also believes that several of these gifts may violate [federal law], or that numerous gifts were given below the “minimal value,” but the aggregate total was in excess of the allowed minimal value.
My client believes that many of these donations are from “prohibited sources” … and requests that you investigate each and every donation to determine if it is from a prohibited source, or if a foreign citizen or agent of a foreign government made gifts to this intelligence official.
Beyond those possible violations of federal law, “the most concerning allegation that my client believes is that the federal employee you are protecting and their attorneys apparently have strategically weaponized their alleged whistleblowing activities into a very lucrative money-making enterprise using a charity incorporated under a different name than the trade name it is using for fund-raising purposes, which would appear to my client to be a clear abuse of the federal employee’s authority and access to classified information.”
The GoFundMe Letter
The letter at the GofundMe account is from Tye and the whistleblower’s attorneys, Andrew Bakaj and Mark Zaid.
Tye and Zaid founded Whistleblower Aid. Tye, who worked for the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, was a whistleblower during the Obama administration. Zaid has been plotting what he called a “coup” against Trump since 2017, and has solicited clients to mount a campaign to destroy the president.
Thus are they helping Ciaramella, who concocted the hearsay account of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky that triggered the impeachment inquiry. During that call on July 25, Trump asked Zelensky to probe the Biden-Burisma influence-peddling scandal, supposedly inviting “foreign interference” in the 2020 election because Joe Biden is running for president.
At the GoFundMe page, the three anti-Trump coup plotters wrote that a “a U.S. intelligence officer who filed an urgent report of government misconduct needs your help.” He is, they aver, a “brave individual who took an oath to protect and defend our Constitution.”
The appeal says “donations will only be accepted from U.S. citizens,” and any money left over will go to the “Whistleblower Aid’s budget to help other brave Americans make lawful disclosures about government wrongdoing.”
Among the donors to the cause of helping those “brave Americans” are “Lynette Fromme,” “John Hinkley,” “Sirhan Sirhan,” “Lee Oswald,” and “John Wilkes Booth.”
The first two are the names of the assassins who tried and failed to murder presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Sirhan Sirhan murdered Senator Robert F. Kennedy just after he won the Democratic primaries in California and South Dakota. The last two assassinated presidents John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln.
