Grassley breaks with Senate Republicans and President Trump by supporting impeachment whistleblower - Entrepreneur Generations

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, broke with other congressional Republicans this week by defending the whistleblower who prompted the impeachment investigation of President Trump. The president "has sought to delegitimize the report, saying it should not have been filed because much of it is based on second-hand information rather than the whistleblower's direct knowledge of events," notes Robin Opsahl of the Des Moines Register.

Grassley said in a press release Tuesday that protections for whistleblowers don't depend on how the person got the information they've reported. He acknowledged that complaints based on second-hand information "do require additional leg work to get at the facts and evaluate the claim’s credibility," Opsahl reports.

Grassley has been at odds with Trump over the recent Renewable Fuel Standard dust-up, a major issue in Iowa, and the president's failure to deliver a promised deal to settle disputes over ethanol. But he has also been a long-time defender of whistleblowers, "beginning in 1986 when he authored amendments to the False Claims Act encouraging whistleblowers to come forward with reports of fraud and abuse," Opsahl reports.

Grassley also called for the public to respect the whistleblower's confidentiality and said media reports with revealing details about their identity "don't serve the public interest". Grassley also criticized Democrats for moving to impeach Trump without waiting for more evidence, and said they were motivated by an inability to accept Trump's election rather than evidence of wrongdoing, Opsahl reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2pqTt89 Grassley breaks with Senate Republicans and President Trump by supporting impeachment whistleblower - Entrepreneur Generations

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