Attorneys for the whistleblower who submitted a complaint about President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president, prompting the impeachment process to begin, declined to confirm or deny that their client was Eric Ciaramella, a career CIA officer.
RealClearInvestigations reported Wednesday that Ciaramella was the whistleblower. The Washington Examiner has established, however, that there was one significant inaccuracy in the report: Ciaramella does currently work at the CIA. The report was written by Paul Sperry, a partisan pro-Trump figure who had released Ciaramella’s identity via Twitter earlier this month and whom critics accuse of trading in disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Asked whether their client was Ciaramella, 33, attorneys Mark Zaid and Andrew Bakaj told the Washington Examiner in a statement: “We neither confirm nor deny the identity of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower.”
Zaid and Bakaj said: “Our client is legally entitled to anonymity. Disclosure of the name of any person who may be suspected to be the whistleblower places that individual and their family in great physical danger. Any physical harm the individual and/or their family suffers as a result of disclosure means that the individuals and publications reporting such names will be personally liable for that harm. Such behavior is at the pinnacle of irresponsibility and is intentionally reckless.”
Having initially begun the headline on its article “‘Whistleblower’ Exposed,” RealClearInvestigations changed this to “How ‘Whistleblower’ May Be Outed” some two hours after first publication.
Foes of the whistleblower, a career CIA analyst formerly detailed to the White House National Security Council, say that only the Intelligence Community inspector general is legally bound to maintain the person’s confidentiality. The inspector general received an Aug. 12 complaint from the whistleblower, ultimately leading to the public revelation that Trump requested Ukraine’s president to investigate Democrats.
[Also read: Lawyer for CIA officer accusing Trump on Ukraine helped whistleblower who worked with Biden on 2007 complaint]
Ciaramella was Ukraine director on the NSC during the end of the Obama administration and remained there during the early months of the Trump administration, when he was briefly acting senior director for European and Russian affairs before the arrival of Fiona Hill. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the current Ukraine director on the NSC, testified in a secret hearing held by the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.
Trump’s request — that Ukraine investigate the whereabouts of a Democratic National Committee server and investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian energy firm — came as the White House withheld about $400 million in foreign aid.
Zaid and Bakaj pointed in their statement to a Republican senator and a Trump-appointed official who said their client had acted appropriately:
“In correspondence dated October 22, 2019, the Counsel of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency made it clear that ‘Whistleblowers play an essential public service in coming forward’ by reporting their reasonable belief of waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct, and that whistleblowers ‘should never suffer reprisal or even the threat of reprisal for doing so.’ Significantly, the letter quotes Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), Chairman and co-founder of the U.S. Senate’s Whistleblower Caucus, who noted recently regarding this matter, that whistleblowers ‘ought to be heard out and protected’ and ‘we should always work to respect whistleblowers’ requests for confidentiality.’
“Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire — himself an appointee of President Trump — stated in his public testimony on September 26, 2019, that the whistleblower ‘acted in good faith’ and did ‘everything by the book.'”
UPDATE: The second paragraph of this story has been updated to provide more information about the inaccuracy in the report established by the Washington Examiner and to make clear that Paul Sperry identified Eric Ciaramella via Twitter on Oct. 3 but did not name him then.
