This is in response to the Gil Mertz letter printed on Feb. 26, “A Tale of Two Whistleblowers.”
Gil’s letter suggests that Democrats are being hypocritical for protecting the whistleblower who submitted a whistleblower report to his/her superiors concerning the president and Ukraine and not doing the same for the “whistleblowers” who reported on Planned Parenthood for allegedly selling fetal tissue for profit.
I find it surprising that The Signal editor titled the letter “A Tale of Two Whistleblowers.” The Planned Parenthood accusations did not come from whistleblowers. The accusations came from spies from The Center for Medical Progress infiltrating Planned Parenthood offices posing as representatives of a biotech company. These spies illegally filmed persons inside Planned Parenthood without their permission and these spies were subsequently charged with 15 felonies. The videos were found to have been edited and no unedited content has been produced. Twelve states investigated the accusations and found that no sale of tissue for profit had occurred and no laws were violated by Planned Parenthood.
Whistleblower procedures are highly structured and supervised and are used in many industries and government agencies as a safeguard against abuses within an organization. The Ukraine whistleblower has not made direct accusations and has not purported to have information that is incriminating to the president or his administration. The whistleblower simply submitted a report of what he/she saw or heard that seemed to him/her to be suspicious. The accusations and recriminations fall to the whistleblower’s superiors acting on the whistleblower’s report.
If there is any suspicion of bad faith stemming from the whistleblower report, it falls on the whistleblower’s superiors’ shoulders. The whistleblower’s information would have never seen the light of day if it had not passed the scrutiny of the whistleblower chain of custody. Surely anyone can understand how recriminations against any whistleblower would neuter the effectiveness of any whistleblower program.
The president accusing the whistleblower of being a spy or traitor is more that enough to warrant keeping the whistleblower’s identity protected.
Duane Mooring
Castaic
