With the news that CIA general counsel Courtney Simmons Elwood was so alarmed by the whistleblower report that she made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, it’s almost inevitable that you’re going to hear wailings of “swamp creature” and “angry Democrat” from the deplorables.
But a quick dive into Elwood’s background should put that to rest, and quickly. According to her CIA biography, Elwood clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and later clerked for J. Michael Luttig, a Bush 41 appointee to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. During the Bush 43 administration, Elwood served as an associate counsel to Bush, deputy counsel to Cheney and deputy chief of staff to the Attorney General.
In other words, this woman is Republican through and through. And she was able to take off her partisan label long enough to see that the behavior in that whistleblower report was criminal. Simply put, Courtney Simmons Elwood is a patriot. And she is proof that it is still possible to put your oath of office above your party label—and any supposed loyalty to the president who appointed you.