Second intel official comes forward
New whistleblower has direct knowledge of Trump’s Ukraine dealings, lawyer says
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for the whistleblower whose complaint set off an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump said Sunday that the same legal team was now representing a second whistleblower, an intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the president’s interactions with Ukraine.
The new whistleblower “made a protected disclosure under the law and cannot be retaliated against,” Mark S. Zaid, one of the lawyers, said on Twitter.
Zaid confirmed a report by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on his show, “This Week,” which said the new whistleblower had already been interviewed by the intelligence community’s inspector general’s office, but had not yet communicated with any congressional committees.
Another member of the legal team confirmed on Twitter that the firm was now representing “multiple whistleblowers” but declined to comment further.
It was not clear if the new whistleblower would file a formal complaint. Zaid said the second whistleblower’s act of coming forward to the inspector general had already secured whistleblower protections.
The New York Times reported Friday that an intelligence official with more direct knowledge of Trump’s dealing with Ukraine than the first whistleblower, and who had grown alarmed by the president’s behavior, was weighing whether to come forward. The second official was among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistleblower, one of the people briefed on the matter said.
The new whistleblower matches the description of the official that The Times reported on last week. Zaid said he did not know whether the individual was the same person.
The first whistleblower, a CIA officer who was detailed to the National Security Council, filed a complaint in August outlining how Trump used his power to push Ukraine to investigate his domestic political rivals.
Trump has tried to undermine the credibility of the first
whistleblower, whose identity is not publicly known, by saying that the individual was trading on secondhand information.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. But Trump preemptively went on the attack on Saturday night.
“The first so-called second hand information ‘Whistleblower’ got my phone conversation almost completely wrong, so now word is they are going to the bench and another ‘Whistleblower’ is coming in from the Deep State, also with second hand info,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday night, referring to his now-infamous July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine, in which he leaned on Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden, the former vice president and current presidential candidate, as well as his son Hunter. “Keep them coming!”
Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, framed the news of the new whistleblower on Sunday as a political hit on the president. “SURPRISE Democrat lawyer has other secret sources,” Giuliani wrote on Twitter. He added that the bottom line was that there was “no quid pro quo” attached to Trump’s pressure on Ukrainian officials to investigate his political rivals, and called the story an “ORCHESTRATED DEM CAMPAIGN LIKE KAVANAUGH,” referring to the sexual misconduct allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
Zaid works for Compass Rose Legal Group, a law firm that specializes in representing whistleblowers. He is part of the legal team that is now representing both individuals who have come forward. The team also includes Andrew P. Bakaj, the lead lawyer, and I. Charles McCullough III.
“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,” Bakaj said on Twitter. “No further comment at this time.”
Democrats who are building the impeachment case against Trump sought to paint the accumulation of evidence against him as inevitable Sunday. Meanwhile, the White House had few allies on the Sunday show circuit who strongly defended the president’s actions.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the second-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said his panel had not yet heard from a second whistleblower as of Sunday morning. But argued that the speed with which details of the case were becoming public was itself a strong sign of wrongdoing.
“We’re sort of sitting here watching the information flow out of the White House, damning information, facts that are undisputed,” Himes said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “What’s happening is that people around the president, professionals, who are in the Oval Office, who are in the Situation Room, are watching what is happening and are finally saying, ‘My God, this cannot happen anymore,’ and they are coming forward.”
The intelligence panel is still working with the first whistleblower and the director of national intelligence to arrange a private interview. With information evolving unusually quickly, few senior congressional Republicans or White House officials have stepped out publicly to defend Trump’s actions. The White House, which has been riven internally about how to handle impeachment proceedings, did not have any senior officials making the case to defend Trump on Sunday.
And those congressional allies who did make public comments Sunday either focused on attacking Democrats’ handling of the case or said they would reserve judgment until they saw more facts.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a key member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was interested to learn more about the new whistleblower and offered no defense of Trump’s actions toward Ukraine. Instead, he said he first wanted to see the results of the Senate’s bipartisan investigation of the matter before making a judgment.
“You have to assume if it is essentially a partisan vote in the House, that that sets the stage for likely the same kind of vote in the Senate,” Blunt said on CBS. “But let’s see what the facts are.”
Others were more squarely behind the president.
Sen. Ron Johnson, RWis., said in a heated exchange on “Meet the Press” that Trump had “vehemently, angrily denied” to him withholding aid for Ukraine in exchange for investigating his political rivals.
“Unlike the narrative of the press that President Trump wants to dig up dirt on his 2020 opponent, what he wants is an accounting of what happened in 2016,” Johnson said.