Trump cries wolf on whistleblower rules We begin with a tweet from President Trump written in all-capital letters: "WHO CHANGED THE LONG STANDING WHISTLEBLOWER RULES JUST BEFORE SUBMITTAL OF THE FAKE WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT? DRAIN THE SWAMP!" It's emblematic of how Trump uses misinformation (and all-caps tweets) to defend himself from serious charges. First it was the Russia investigation, and now, an impeachment inquiry in Congress spurred by a whistleblower complaint. We mapped out how this false attack wound up on the president's Twitter account. A factually flawed article on the conservative website the Federalist became fodder for Trump's allies on TV, which in turn caught the president's attention. The Federalist asserted that "between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, firsthand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings." As proof, the Federalist cited the fact that the intelligence community's whistleblower form was revised in August, the same month the Ukraine whistleblower filed a complaint. But forms don't change rules; the rules are set by laws and policies. In this case, the guiding document is Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 120, which was issued in 2014 and last updated in 2016. The directive implements Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 19, "Protecting Whistleblowers with Access to Classified Information," which President Barack Obama signed to provide the first-ever executive-branch protections for intelligence community whistleblowers. In a lengthy statement rebutting the Federalist's reporting, the U.S. intelligence community inspector general's office said that the Ukraine whistleblower used the previous version of form, not the new version. The inspector general's office also disclosed that the Ukraine whistleblower indicated on the form that the complaint relied on a mix of firsthand and secondhand knowledge. We gave Four Pinocchios to Trump.  Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we'll check it out. Warren and Sanders, "100% grassroots-funded?" They are two of the top contenders in the Democratic presidential primary and two of the fiercest critics of money in politics. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) both say their 2020 campaigns are "100 percent" funded by grassroots donors. They don't say 99 percent. It's 100 — total purity, zero wiggle room. Both are formidable fundraisers who have raised most of their money this year from donors giving $200 or less. But we found that it doesn't quite add up to 100 percent for either Sanders or Warren and gave each of them Two Pinocchios, though Sanders got closer to 100 percent than Warren. "Grassroots funding" is loosely defined. But the key here is that Sanders and Warren both say all their donors are grassroots this year because the candidates self-imposed fundraising restrictions such as swearing off all PAC contributions and closed-door fundraisers with the rich. Except, they didn't have those lofty fundraising restrictions in place for their previous campaigns. Sanders, who held closed high-dollar fundraisers in 2015, has transferred $4.6 million from his 2016 to his 2020 committee. Warren, who also held high-dollar fundraisers and took some PAC money when she ran for reelection to the Senate in 2018, has transferred $10.4 million from that campaign to her 2020 presidential committee.  Furry friend The thirsty feline featured in this week's GIFs is actually a friend of one of our readers. His name is Cisco, and the images are courtesy of his Aunt Betty. Usually we pluck the cat images from online GIF repositories, but not this week. Think your cat has what it takes to be featured in the newsletter? Send us some GIFs or videos! We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can also reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @mmkelly22, @rizzoTK or use #FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker). Read about our rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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