Republicans want to find a way to compel CIA officer and former National Security Council Ukraine director Eric Ciaramella to testify in the impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
Ciaramella, 33, currently working for the National Intelligence Council under the director of national intelligence, has been named as the Ukraine whistleblower. The whistleblower’s lawyers have refused to confirm or deny this, and Ciaramella himself has not responded to questions from the Washington Examiner.
The chief Republican counsel in the impeachment proceedings raised Ciaramella’s name during closed-door hearings. In open hearings, whenever GOP questioning had got close to Ciaramella or any other members of the Intelligence Community, Rep. Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, shut them down.
Now, Republican members are arguing that Ciaramella’s past position as Ukraine director and his current work on Ukraine issues makes him a relevant witness, whether or not he is the whistleblower.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham told the Washington Examiner he could not imagine a Senate trial happening without the whistleblower testifying.
“You need to know the person who started the complaint. Without this, there would be no, there’d be no case,” he said. “The whistleblower statute was never meant to allow somebody to not come forward and confront the person they’re accusing.”
Three Republican sources in Congress told the Washington Examiner on the condition of anonymity that while they could not confirm Ciaramella was the whistleblower, they have privately discussed that he played some sort of key role in the accusations against Trump. Lawmakers want to know what kind of information he can provide. “He is the only name we have,” one Republican member confirmed.
Ciaramella, a career CIA analyst, worked on Ukraine when 2020 Democrat Joe Biden, then vice president, was President Obama’s “point man” on Ukraine. Ciaramella was a guest of Biden at a 2016 State Department banquet and currently works with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine official at the White House, who has testified against Trump on Capitol Hill.
The whistleblower triggered the Democratic-led impeachment proceedings after filing a complaint with the Intelligence Community inspector on Aug. 12 related to the July 25 phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy told the Washington Examiner that given the background of Ciaramella, he would not be surprised if Trump’s lawyer’s called him as a fact witness.
“I’m prepared to listen to any witness they would bring forward, but it’s clear that the individual named by some members of the media [Ciaramella] worked closely with the [former] vice president on issues dealing with Ukraine,” Kennedy said. “And he may know something about the allegations with respect to Mr. Hunter [Biden].”
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul recently named Ciaramella and called on him to testify before Congress. “I think Eric Ciaramella needs to be pulled in for testimony, and then I think it will be ultimately determined at that point,” he said. “But I think he is a person of interest in the sense that he was at the Ukraine desk when Joe Biden was there when Hunter Biden was working for the Ukrainian oligarch. So simply for that alone, I think he’s a material witness who needs to be brought in.”
House Democrats can currently control which witnesses can come forward in the lower chamber during the present impeachment proceedings. But Republicans have the majority in the upper chamber. Democrats are prepared to fight any Republican witness subpoena they do not like.
“I think the law is pretty clear, it protects whistleblowers, and it would be interesting to see them argue why that testimony was necessary since it’s coming from sources more familiar with the subject than he was,” Kentucky Democratic Rep. John Yarmouth said.
He added: “I’m sure we will resist and oppose the subpoena [the whistleblower]. And then it would be up to Chief Justice [Roberts], and with the chief justice, again, I think you’d have to make a demonstration as to why that testimony was necessary, which it clearly isn’t.”
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson told the Washington Examiner: “I have no idea how this is going to play out. I think it is kind of interesting that the Washington Post all but names the guy.”
“It gives everything but his birth date and Social Security number,” Johnson said. “So, we’re all playing this charade like we don’t know who it is, but maybe we don’t.”
