WASHINGTON — Congress wants to ensure that former President Donald Trump’s attempted coercion of Ukraine in 2019 — and his effort to thwart and intimidate the official who disclosed it — never recur. But a new law aimed at doing that is insufficient, several whistleblower advocates contended.
That law, the fiscal 2022 omnibus spending measure, contains provisions that only partly address the abuses of power that led to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, the analysts told CQ Roll Call this week.
“We are disappointed that the negotiators substituted a baby step for a Senate mandate to systematically overhaul the rights of Intelligence Community whistleblowers,” said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, an organization that works with and advocates for whistleblowers, in an email. “We’ll be pressing all year to finish what just got started in this bill.”
