New: A Second Whistleblower Filed a Complaint with ICIG About Eric Ciaramella’s Alleged Fundraising Solicitations
Fox News’ Gregg Re has just reported that a second whistleblower, possibly a real one this time, filed a complaint last week with the Intelligence Community Inspector General about the original whistleblower, alleged to be Eric Ciaramella. Re wrote that Ciaramella “may have violated federal law by indirectly soliciting more than a quarter-million dollars from mostly anonymous sources via a GoFundMe page.” So far, 6,000 donors have contributed a total of $227,000.
The new whistleblower alleges that these funds: clearly constitute gifts to a current intelligence official that may be restricted because of the employee’s official position pursuant to 5 CFR 2635.203 and other statutes. The complaint also raised the possibility that some of the donations may have come from prohibited sources, and asked the ICIG to look into whether any “foreign citizen or agent of a foreign government” contributed.” Tully Rinckey PLLC, the law firm representing the individual reporting the allegations, is closely guarding the identity of their client, though Fox News is told the individual is the holder of a top-secret SCI security clearance and has served in government.
Regarding the fundraising, managing partner at Tully Rinckey, Anthony Gallo, told Fox that “I have not seen anything on this scale. It’s not about politics for my client — it’s whistleblower-on-whistleblower, and [my client’s] only interest is to see the government ethics rules are being complied with government-wide.” Fox reported in September that Ciaramella’s lawyers, Andrew Bakaj and Mark Zaid of the Compass Rose Law firm, were working with non-profit Whistleblower Aid to launch a GoFundMe page to raise funds for his legal defense. Their goal was to raise $100,000. (That story can be viewed here.) His lawyers: have called the GoFundMe a way to “help support the Intelligence Community Whistleblower [to] raise funds,” and the GoFundMe page itself states that “A U.S. intelligence officer… needs your help” in the form of a “crowdfunding effort to support the whistleblower’s lawyers.” The fundraising page claims that “donations will only be accepted from U.S. citizens.” But, the majority of the GoFundMe donors to the whistleblower’s campaign were not named, and legal experts have told Fox News that the ICIG likely would need to subpoena the website to obtain more information on their origins. https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/11/12/new-second-whistleblower-filed-complaint-icig-eric-ciaramellas-alleged-fundraising-solicitations/
