The intelligence official who raised concerns about President Trump’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine is worried about reprisal from the Trump administration and its supporters.
A letter from the legal team for the unnamed whistleblower, whose complaint helped to spur an impeachment inquiry by House Democrats, indicates an urgent concern for this person’s safety.
Andrew Bakaj, the lead attorney for the whistleblower, wrote to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maquire on Saturday regarding safety concerns, noting that the events of the past week “have heightened our concerns that our client’s identity will be disclosed publicly and that, as a result, our client will be put in harm’s way.”
Bakaj began by thanking Maguire for saying in testimony last week that the whistleblower “did the right thing.” Maguire’s initial refusal to hand over complaint to the House and Senate intelligence committees, in defiance of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, led to a standoff with Congress. Maguire said he was only acting in accordance with the determination of the Justice Department, which deemed the complaint to be outside the jurisdiction of the statute because it involved someone outside the U.S. intelligence community.
Cited in the letter is Trump’s remarks on Thursday to a group of staff from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in which he alluded to punishment for spies.
“I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information because that’s close to a spy,” Trump said. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
Although Trump’s statement was directed to the whistleblower’s sources, Bakaj said this “does nothing to assuage our concerns for our client’s safety.” He also cited how two Trump supporters, controversial conservatives Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, are offering a $50,000 “bounty” for information about the whistleblower.
“Unfortunately, we expect this situation to worse, and to become even more dangerous for our client and any other whistleblowers, as Congress seeks to investigate this matter,” Bakaj said.
The letter was forwarded to Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who first received the report in August and found it to be credible, and the top Democrats and Republicans of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
In a message to the leadership of these panels, Bakaj said his team calls upon political leadership of both parties to “speak in favor of whistleblower protection and reiterate that this is a protected system where retaliation is not permitted, whether direct or implied. We further expect that political leaders from both parties condemn and intimidation against our client and others.”
CBS News’ 60 Minutes, which first received the letter, reported that it indicated the whistleblower “fears for their safety” and therefore is under federal protection. However, Mark Zaid, another attorney for the whistleblower, told the Washington Examiner that 60 Minutes “completely misinterpreted” its contents.
The whistleblower has not been identified, but it was reported on Thursday that the intelligence official works at the CIA and was stationed in the White House when the call was made.
As the whistleblower’s legal team negotiates with the House and Senate intelligence panels about a possible meeting, Trump demanded to meet the person behind the complaint, which alleged he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate matters related to the 2016 election and Joe Biden, a former vice president and lead Democratic candidate for president.
In a series of tweets on Sunday, the president declared that he wants to know the identity of both the whistleblower, who did not have direct knowledge Trump’s call, and the person who passed the details of the conversation along.
He also continued his attacks on House Intelligence Committee Chairmain Adam Schiff for summarizing the phone call during a hearing last week, accusing the congressman of “lying” by reading a “made up” version of the call. Schiff, however, has indicated that his summary was intended to be “at least partly parody.”
Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called “Whistleblower,” represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. Then Schiff made up what I actually said by lying to Congress……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 29, 2019
….In addition, I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the “Whistleblower.” Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 29, 2019
Although Trump and his defenders, including his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, argue the notes show no evidence of a “quid pro quo” by leveraging millions of dollars in delayed U.S. military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initiated a formal impeachment inquiry last week after the president admitted he did bring up Biden to his Ukrainian counterpart.
In the complaint about the call, which was released along with a transcript of it last week, the whistleblower also accused the administration of attempting to conceal the transcript. The White House later acknowledged that the transcript was stored on a separate system.
Schiff told ABC’s This Week on Sunday that the whistleblower has reached an agreement to testify before the committee “very soon.”
