Now Trump faces new whistleblower
US President lashes out as crisis grips White House
‘Brazen and unprecedented’
THE White House was plunged into further crisis yesterday after a second whistleblower came forward as part of the impeachment investigation into Donald Trump.
The case involves an alleged security breach in a telephone call between Mr Trump and his opposite number in Ukraine, which occurred last month.
He had reportedly tried to push Volodymyr Zelensky into ‘digging up dirt’ into his potential opponent in next year’s election, Joe Biden.
Mr Trump last night heard there are ‘multiple whistleblowers’ lining up to point the finger at him. The second whistleblower is also from the US intelligence community, according to their lawyer Mark Zaid. He said the individual had ‘first-hand knowledge’ of Mr Trump’s dealings with Ukraine – sparking rumours it is somebody within Trump’s inner circle.
The lawyer also represents the first whistleblower who filed a complaint about the July 25 phone call between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky.
As a result, leading Democrat Nancy Pelosi launched formal impeachment proceedings on September 24.
A senior figure in Mr Zaid’s firm, Compass Rose Legal Group, said there were in fact ‘multiple’ whistleblowers.
Andrew Bakaj said on Twitter: ‘I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General.’
Rather than hide away, a typically bullish Mr Trump asked China to investigate Mr Biden’s son Hunter on Friday.
This second appeal to a foreign government saw the knives come out for Mr Trump from his own party, with Republican governor Mitt Romney calling the President’s appeal ‘ brazen and unprecedented’, as well as ‘wrong and appalling’.
But yesterday, Mr Trump reiterated on Twitter his wish to see a probe into the Biden family. He said: ‘It is INCREDIBLE to watch and read the Fake News and how they pull out all stops to protect Sleepy Joe Biden and his thrown out of the Military son, Hunter, who was handed $100,000 a month ( Plus, Plus) from a Ukrainian based company, even though he had no experience in energy, and separately got 1.5 Billion Dollars from China despite no experience and for no apparent reason.
‘There is NO WAY these can be legitimate transactions? As lawyers & others have stated, as President, I have an OBLIGATION to look into possible, or probable, CORRUPTION!’ There is no evidence of any wrongdoing from either Joe or Hunter Biden. No details have yet been released about the second whistleblower’s claims. Mr Biden, whose son Hunter sits on the board of a Ukrainian oil company that has faced corruption allegations, is the favourite Democrat to run in next year’s election.
In a Washington Post article, released Saturday, Mr Biden accused Mr Trump of ‘frantically pushing flat-out lies’, in the hope it would ‘undermine my candidacy for the presidency... Enough is enough.’