Trump retweets — then deletes — a post naming the alleged whistleblower
President Donald Trump retweeted — and then deleted — a post naming the alleged whistleblower who filed the complaint that became the catalyst for the congressional inquiry that resulted in his impeachment by the House of Representatives.
On Friday night, Mr. Trump shared a tweet from @surfermom77, who describes herself as “100% Trump supporter,” with his 68 million followers. That tweet prominently named the alleged whistleblower and suggested that he had committed perjury.
By Saturday morning, Mr. Trump’s retweet had been deleted.
For months, Mr. Trump has threatened to disclose the identity of the whistleblower, complaining that he should be able to face his accuser. In the past few days, he has inched closer to doing so. On Thursday night, the president retweeted a link to a Washington Examiner story that used the name.
The alleged whistleblower has also been named in other conservative media, including Breitbart News. He was named by a contributor on Fox News, and Donald Trump Jr. has tweeted the name.
The whistleblower’s identity has been kept secret because of whistleblower protection laws, which exist to shield those who come forward with allegations of wrongdoing by the government. Whistleblower advocates say this anonymity is important, because it protects those who speak up from retaliation and encourages others to come forward.
The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The Washington Post has chosen not to publish the whistleblower’s name.
Mr. Trump and his allies claim the law does not forbid disclosing the identity of the whistleblower. Federal laws offer only limited protection for those in the intelligence community who report wrongdoing, and those in the intelligence community have even fewer protections than those in other agencies.
The 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act did not detail any protections for whistleblowers from retaliation — instead merely describing the process to make a complaint.
Whistleblower attorney Bradley P. Moss told the Post in September that the law does not apply to members of Congress who might disclose the whistleblower’s name.
“This is all very, very fragile, and a lot of the protections that we understand to exist are based more on courtesy and custom than anything written down in law,” Mr. Moss said.
Mr. Moss is the law partner of Mark Zaid, one of the whistleblower’s attorneys, though he has had no involvement in that case.
The whistleblower, who works for the CIA, filed an official complaint that, among other concerns, pointed to a July 25 phone conversation in which Mr. Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden.
After several months of investigation, the House voted Dec. 18 to impeach Mr. Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate will hold a trial, where the Republican-majority is expected to acquit him in early 2020.
Congressional Republicans have demanded the whistleblower testify as part of the impeachment probe. Democrats have countered that the whistleblower’s testimony is unnecessary because other witnesses have corroborated and expanded on the original complaint, which was based on secondhand information.
The president has repeatedly disparaged the whistleblower, though never by name, in tweets, interviews and rally speeches. In late September, Mr. Trump accused the whistleblower’s sources of being “close to a spy,” adding, “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? With spies and treason, right? We used to handle them a little differently than we do now.”
In early November, the whistleblower’s attorney sent White House counsel Pat Cipollone a cease-and-desist letter, demanding the president stop denigrating the whistleblower.
“I am writing out of deep concern that your client, the President of the United States, is engaging in rhetoric and activity that places my client, the Intelligence Community Whistleblower, and their family in physical danger,” wrote attorney Andrew Bakaj. “I am writing to respectfully request that you counsel your client on the legal and ethical peril in which he is placing himself should anyone be physically harmed as a result of his, or his surrogates’, behavior.”
The whistleblower, who is reportedly still at his job, is driven to and from work by armed security officers when threats are elevated. The threats seem to spike whenever Mr. Trump tweets about him, the Post has reported.
The Twitter feed for Surfermom77, who identifies herself as “Sophia” on the social media site, is a daily stream of pro-Trump and anti-Democrat memes and propaganda. In 2016, the account shared the false conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was Muslim.
In the days after Christmas, Mr. Trump retweeted more than a dozen posts from users affiliated with QAnon, a conspiracy theory that there is a “deep state” secretly plotting to take down Mr. Trump. The FBI has identified QAnon as a potential domestic terrorism threat.