Fox News anchor Howard Kurtz defended the media for not publishing the whistleblower’s identity, citing the message it would send to potential future whistleblowers.
The whistleblower filed a complaint about President Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump has been accused of holding up military aid meant for Ukraine until Ukrainian leaders agreed to publicly announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, as well as any Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 presidential election.
Kurtz appeared Tuesday on Fox News and supported the media’s reluctance in reporting on the whistleblower’s identity, despite calls from Trump and other Republicans to do so.
“Here is the reason that nobody in the press who knows it has revealed it, and that is this is a government official, in my view — I’m not defending the whistleblower, I don’t know his motivation — who went through official channels, who didn’t leak it to the press, who went to an inspector general, who went to a committee of Congress, and with the expectation that he’d remain anonymous,” he explained.
“It would send a very chilling message to future whistleblowers,” Kurtz added, “including in Democratic administrations, including people who have information on scandal, if they thought they could be turned into a political piñata if somebody just leaks the name to a reporter.”
Kurtz, after facing push back from Hume, admitted that publishing the name would be “huge,” but added, “There are all kinds of people who we don’t name although we could, and we have legal the power to do. First of all, we protect our own confidential sources. We don’t name people who are intelligence agents, in a covert capacity, we don’t name rape accusers, so I think you have to balance the news with it.”
Aside from Trump, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul called for the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed. He demanded the media “do your job and print [the whistleblower’s] name,” while he was speaking at Trump’s rally in Kentucky on Monday night.
Kurtz pushed back on Paul’s request, arguing that the senator only wants the press to reveal the whistleblower’s identity, so he doesn’t have to face the “enormous political blowback.”
Earlier in the segment, Brit Hume, who was hosting the show, interviewed Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano who said that networks wouldn’t face any legal consequences should they publish the name.
UPDATE: Paul told the Washington Examiner, “The whistleblower statute protects the accuser from being fired but says nothing about skeptics revealing his name. There is absolutely no statute that prevents anyone, other than the inspector general from releasing the accuser’s name.”
