According to the GOP and an army of conservative commentators, the old version of the form prohibited workers from submitting urgent complaints based on secondhand information; only misconduct witnessed personally could be reported. That changed in early August, the false claim goes, when ICIG Michael Atkinson snuck through a hasty revision to the complaint form that reversed long-standing policy…

What the article didn’t mention or screenshot is a nearly identical field gracing Form 401 since at least May 2018, making it impossible that it was added as an easement for Trump’s whistleblower. The major difference in the fields is that the old form includes three options instead of two, subdividing secondhand sources into outside source and “other employees.”…

“There’s never been a requirement that a whistleblower have firsthand knowledge of what they’re reporting,” said Irvin McCullough, an investigator at the nonprofit Government Accountability Project (and the son of a former IC IG). “They need to have a reasonable belief. The firsthand information is usually gathered by the inspector general, as I believe did occur here.”