I mentioned in the note below that a number of big things happened around the time this complaint was filed. We don’t know they’re connected. But as we’re piecing this together I wanted to line these events up in chronological order for future reference. I stress again: We don’t know they’re connected.
July 28th: Trump announces Dan Coats will step down as Director of National Intelligence and leave government on August 15th.
July 31st: Trump initiates phone call with Putin. The White House only acknowledged the call after the Kremlin announced it.
August 8th: Trump announces that Sue Gordon, Coats’ deputy who would normally take over as acting DNI, is resigning and will leave her job on August 15th.
August 12th: Whistleblower files complaint with intelligence community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.
August 15th: Coats and Gordon leave government.
August 20th: Trump again calls for Russia to be allowed to rejoin the G7 group of industrialized nations.
August 26th: Atkinson submits whistleblower complaint to acting DNI Maguire. Maguire consults with the Department of Justice which instructs him not to share the information with Congress.
September 9th: Atkinson informed Congress of existence of whistleblower complaint which he had determined met the legal threshold of “urgent concern” without revealing its contents.
September 10th: House Intelligence Committee under Chairman Schiff formally requests whistleblower complaint from acting Director of National Intelligence Maguire, threatens legal action.
As you can see we have three separate progressions, which may or may not be connected: the forced resignations of Coats and Gordon, communications with Putin and the timeline of the whistleblower complaint. One point I will note is that Coats and Gordon remained in government for three days after the complaint was made. But it’s not clear that the complaint would have been shared beyond the IG’s office before they left on August 15th.
