"Face the Nation" on the whistleblower/hearsay

Excerpts from "Face the Nation" on 29 September 2019:

**
SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: --on the board being investigated for corruption and the guy doing the investigation is asked to be fired by Biden. I don't know what happened. It smells to high heaven. I never said the Mueller witch hunt-- the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt. I introduced legislation to protect Mueller.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: This seems to me like a political setup. It's all hearsay. You can't get a parking ticket conviction based on hearsay. The whistleblower didn't hear the phone call.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

(...)

Graham: I can't believe we're talking about impeaching the President based on an accusation based on hearsay. Who is this whistleblower? What bias do they have? Why did they pick this whistleblower to tell a hearsay story? The transcript does not match the complaint. What's going on here? Why did they change the rules about a whistleblower you can use hearsay when you could not just weeks before the complaint? So I think this thing stinks and let me tell you about Republicans--you want to know about Republicans?

(...)
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY (D-Connecticut/@ChrisMurphyCT): Well, Republicans are circling the wagons because they know this isn't about hearsay evidence. This is about a transcript in which the President of the United States seeks to trade away the credibility of the country, seeks to use the immense power of the presidency in order to destroy a political rival. The whistleblower complaint is absolutely credible, but, frankly, you don't need it because you have a transcript of a conversation in which the President of the United States tried to convince a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 election.

(...)

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mike, the whistleblower, as we've been reporting came from the intelligence community. And, yet, you have Republicans saying everything la-- laid out in that complaint was just hearsay. From the work you saw, that was then made public, does that look like it's based on just hearsay?

MICHAEL MORELL: So the whistleblower seems to me to be highly credible. Whistleblower made a number of allegations. We know that the first allegation that the phone call was made and the ask was made about investigating the vice president was one hundred percent correct. The whistleblower lays out not just the fact that they received this from one source but multiple sources. The whistleblower complaint is detailed. It's compelling. We still need to look into the other allegations but I think the whistleblower is highly credible.

**



--> As one patent case discussing hearsay, of possible relevance -->


In
Knorr v. Pearson, 671 F.2d 1368, 1372–73 (C.C.P.A. 1982),
the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals found that
a statement was not hearsay if “the communication (as
opposed to the truth) ha[d] legal significance.” Knorr
involved a telephone call, in which two co-inventors,
Buergin and Pearson, discussed an invention, and which
was overheard by a third party, Rutkowski. Id. at 1370.
The court held that Rutkowski’s testimony on what he
heard Buergin say to Pearson was not hearsay because
the communication of the idea had legal significance as
the basis for the conception of the invention
Id. at 1373-74. By contrast, Rutkowski’s testimony on “Buergin’s
statements to Rutkowski regarding what Pearson said”
was hearsay. Id. at 1373.


Link to November 2016 IPBiz post:

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-cafc-delves-into-analytical.html

--> Also, of relevance to the rules change mentioned by Senator Graham -->


https://pjmedia.com/trending/whistleblower-requirements-recently-amended-to-allow-only-hearsay/

https://247sports.com/college/auburn/board/104012/Contents/a-whistle-blower-complaint-based-on-hearsay-and-news-media-136159103/