Clapper praises whistleblower complaint

Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper on Wednesday described the complaint submitted by an anonymous whistleblower about President Trump’s communications with Ukraine as the “best written” and “best prepared” complaint he had ever seen.

“I would say that of all the whistleblower complaints that I ever saw during my 6 1/2 years as DNI that this one was the best written, best prepared, footnoted and caveated as appropriately it should be,” Clapper, who served as DNI under former President Obama from 2010 until the beginning of 2017, said at The Washington Post’s Cybersecurity Summit.

Clapper said he did not remember a whistleblower complaint being submitted to the intelligence community’s inspector general that was “declared to be urgent,” as the recent whistleblower complaint was deemed to be.

Clapper praised the anonymous whistleblower for “complying meticulously with the provisions of the law” involved with submitting a complaint, and emphasized that “serious, credible complaints of wrongdoing should be investigated.”

The complaint details concerns around a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

The complaint is now at the center of an impeachment inquiry.

Trump last week described the whistleblower as “close to a spy” while speaking at a private event, according to audio obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Clapper said that comments like this were “not a good thing.”

“That is not good for morale, and that is not good for our intelligence partners who share with us, in good faith, information that they believe is germane to our national security,” Clapper said.