Today's Must-Read: Another Brick in the Wall

And here we have another instance of the Trump regime trying (and probably succeeding) in stonewalling Congress:

Greg Sargent does an excellent job of laying out the DNI whistleblower story. It's confusing and the media generally isn't making it less so. (They seem to be being led in various directions by Intelligence sources who may or may not have their own agenda.)

This story is about to get a whole lot more media scrutiny, because it involves secretive back-channel maneuvering, a possible threat to national security and potential lawbreaking at the highest levels of the Trump administration, possibly at the direction of President Trump himself — all with a whole lot of cloak-and-dagger intrigue thrown in.

And now the mystery of Rep. Adam Schiff and the whistleblower has taken an ominous new turn, one that should only underscore concerns that serious — and dangerous — lawbreaking might be unfolding.

At the very least, we’re seeing yet another serious erosion in checks on this administration’s norm-shredding — and, as I hope to explain, there are big and important principles at stake here.

The latest development: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has informed Schiff, the California Democrat and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, that he will not forward a whistleblower’s complaint to the committee, as required by law.

Yet the legal rationale for refusing to do this appears specious — and raises further questions as to why this is happening at all.

Sargent makes the point that the acting Director of National Intelligence hasn't got a legal leg to stand on in this -- the statute that deals with whistleblowers in the executive is very clear and unambiguous, and he simply hasn't got the legal authority to do what he's doing.

Digby finishes with this caveat:

I should add that anyone who thinks that an administration that is willing to defy the congress this way will adhere to the rules and norms governing out elections are fooling themselves. We saw how far they were willing to go in 2000 and did nothing about it. We saw what they did in 2016 and we're wanking on the kitchen table every day. So I'm afraid we can't act surprised if they simply steal it openly in 2020 and then stand there and say "what are you going to do about it?" They have every reason to believe we will do nothing.

That's if we have an election at all.