The CIA’s top attorney filed a criminal referral with the Justice Dept. in response to an intelligence official’s now famous whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump, weeks before the whistleblower’s complaint was made public.
CIA general counsel Courtney Simmons Elwood, a Trump appointee, concluded, along with other senior administration officials, that a crime had been committed, as NBC News first reported late Friday afternoon.
Questions are now flying once again as to why the Dept. of Justice, under the direction of Attorney General Bill Barr, closed the case and refused to investigate the whistleblower’s complaint.
NBC News notes it has not been previously “reported that the CIA’s top lawyer intended her call to be a criminal referral about the president’s conduct, acting under rules set forth in a memo governing how intelligence agencies should report allegations of federal crimes.”
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