Fox News anchor Howard Kurtz argued journalists who name the alleged whistleblower are carrying water for politicians who don’t want to be responsible for identifying the person themselves.
“I don’t think it’s the role of the media to disclose the identity of the whistleblower. As you know, a name came up on my program yesterday. I don’t think that should have happened,” Kurtz said, referring to network contributor Mollie Hemingway naming career CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella as the alleged whistleblower.
“We have no independent reporting that says this is the guy, despite what some partisan sites are saying. Even if we did have independent reporting, I don’t see why the media should be baited into naming somebody because I think it violates the spirit of the Whistleblower Protection Act,” he added.
Hemingway was the second person to name Ciaramella as the alleged whistleblower on the network after Fox News banned the person’s name from being said on-air.
[Related: Fox anchor blasts Mollie Hemingway for naming alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella]
Ciaramella, 33, was Ukraine director on the National Security Council at the end of the Obama administration and was briefly acting senior director for European and Russian affairs in the early months of the Trump administration. He is now a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia on the National Intelligence Council.
Republicans have demanded the whistleblower testify in the impeachment hearings. Lawyers for the whistleblower, who have not confirmed or denied whether they are representing Ciaramella, said any attempts to out their client is the “pinnacle of irresponsibility.”
“We shouldn’t be pushed into this because certain politicians don’t want to take the heat for identifying this person himself,” Kurtz said. “By the way, he’s somewhat irrelevant now — I understand motivations, and he’s a great political target, and that makes sense. Bill Clinton ran against Ken Starr in his impeachment. But I think that so many other witnesses have come forth who do have first-hand information; whistleblower admitted he didn’t have any. But anyway, I think the media have to be careful on this sensitive subject.”
