NYT Op Ed "Why America Needs Whistleblowers"

They are not partisans but stewards of our constitutional democracy.

By Allison Stanger
Dr. Stanger is the author of “Whistleblowers: Honesty in America From Washington to Trump.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/06/opinion/trump-whistleblower.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

In accusing the intelligence community whistle-blower of partisanship and treason, President Trump has redefined whistle-blowing to serve his private interests rather than the rule of law. In the American tradition, whistle-blowers expose illegal or unconstitutional acts that the powerful want to keep secret.

That the current game-changing official intelligence community whistle-blower complaint has reached the American people is a miracle for which we should be grateful. Americans must focus on the content of the whistle-blower complaint, which the White House has not denied. The president has obvious reasons to spin the complaint, but genuine whistle-blowers are not partisans. They are stewards of our constitutional democracy.

Whistle-blower protection is as old as the Republic itself. Congress passed the world’s first whistle-blower protection legislation in 1778 in an effort to keep American elites honest.

The current whistle-blower complaint shines light on an attempted cover-up and an intelligence community that sees the president advancing the Trump brand at the expense of American national security.

snip

But Mr. Trump is the first American president, in this context, to encourage foreign electoral interference while actively seeking to intimidate and shut down the work of institutions intended to keep government accountable to the people. He is also the first president to incite his supporters via tweet to retaliate against a whistle-blower whom both his own intelligence community inspector general and Congress deem legitimate.

Like the president, intelligence community employees swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. In insisting on speaking truth to power at great personal sacrifice, whistle-blowers serve their country and challenge all of us to think for ourselves. What could be more American than that?



sorry for the paywall...worth reading it all