Trump Jr reveals name of ‘whistleblower’
President’s son exposes alleged identity of CIA officer who prompted impeachment inquiry
DONALD TRUMP Jr yesterday tweeted the name of the alleged whistleblower whose complaint about his father’s behaviour towards Ukraine kick-started the impeachment inquiry.
For days, conservative websites have been publishing stories claiming to have discovered the identity of the CIA officer who filed a complaint about the US president’s behaviour.
Amid a backdrop of partisan attacks on the whistleblower’s credibility, Donald Trump’s eldest son posted one such report that named the individual and questioned their motives.
After an immediate backlash, Mr Trump Jr doubled down, writing on Twitter: “I love the outrage about me tweeting an article about the ‘alleged’ whistleblower.”
This newspaper has not independently verified the identity of the whistleblower, who has asked to remain anonymous, and is not publishing the name.
Mr Trump Jr took the step as a chorus of vitriol from Mr Trump and his supporters was directed at the whistleblower, including demands for the person to be named and allegations about their links to Democrats.
The whistleblower, who comes from the intelligence community, filed a detailed complaint alleging that Mr Trump had put pressure on Ukraine to launch an investigation into Joe Biden, the former US vice president who could be the Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential election.
Many of the details in the complaint, which has since been made public, have been corroborated by other witnesses in the impeachment inquiry that followed, including that Mr Trump requested a Biden investigation while on the phone to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Whistleblowers are granted protections in America through a number of overlapping laws. The Inspector General Act of 1978, for example, bars a government watchdog who receives a complaint from disclosing the identity of that person without consent, unless it is deemed “unavoidable”.
The law appears not to bind others, such as the president or his allies, from outing the whistleblower if the identity is discovered.
In a statement issued after Mr Trump Jr’s tweet, the whistleblower’s attorneys warned that “identifying any suspected name for the whistleblower will place that individual and their family at risk of serious harm”.
The statement by Andrew Bakaj and Mark Zaid said that “publication or promotion of a name shows the desperation to deflect from the substance of the whistleblower complaint. It will not relieve the president of the need to address the substantive allegations, all of which have been substantially proven to be true.”
The article that Mr Trump Jr tweeted was published by Breitbart, the Rightwing news website. Mr Trump Jr tweeted the headline, which included the name of the alleged whistleblower.
Attacks on the whistleblower have been led by the president himself, who has demanded the right to know who his accuser is and repeatedly questioned the individual’s motives.
Mr Trump tweeted on Monday: “There is no whistleblower. There is someone with an agenda against Donald Trump.”
Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky, went a step further on
Monday as he stood alongside Mr Trump on stage at a rally and threatened to expose the individual.
“We also now know the name of the whistleblower. I say tonight to the media, do your job and print his name,” Mr Paul said. Numerous Republican senators distanced themselves from Mr Paul’s call, arguing that the whistleblower’s request to remain anonymous should be respected.
It came as the impeachment inquiry approached a new phase as public hearings were announced, starting next Wednesday.