Real Clear Investigations revealed the suspected Trump-Ukraine whistleblower’s name on Wednesday, meaning reporter Paul Sperry confirmed the worst kept secret in DC by “disclosing the name because of the public’s interest in learning of details of an effort to remove a sitting president from office [and] his being a hearsay reporter of accusations [with] an arguable political bias in favor of a rival political candidate.” The name (see below) is less important than his very real political bias.
Let’s work backwards to understand the politics. When asked to confirm the whistleblower’s name, his attorneys (Mark Zaid and Andrew Bakaj) stated, “we neither confirm nor deny the identity of the Intelligence Community whistleblower.” That is lawyerly obfuscation of a name to prevent Republicans from exposing impeachment as a purely political ploy.
Adam Schiff (D-CA) originally wanted to question the whistleblower in a closed-door hearing until the New York Times detailed the whistleblower’s background, allowing many in the intelligence community to identify the man, and Schiff’s secret meeting with the CIA agent was outed by the press. In short, Schiff does not want Republicans establishing a clear fact pattern of pro-Ukraine loyalty and anti-Trump animus under oath.
The fact pattern begins in 2015, when CIA Director John Brennan assigned the 29-year-old CIA Russia-Ukraine specialist to Susan Rice and the National Security Council. White House records confirm Joe Biden invited the low-level (GS-13) staffer to an October 2016 White House luncheon, and former White House officials have confirmed he worked on Ukrainian policy issues for the Vice President. Multiple news reports confirm he’s a registered Democrat named Eric Ciaramella.
According to former CIA analyst and White House official Fred Fleitz, “Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. Congress knows, the White House knows.” So, why keep Ciaramella under wraps? The answer lies in a 40-page research dossier compiled by his former co-workers that is now classified and being circulated around Congress, because Republicans want to “unmask” Ciaramella and his so-called patriotism.
White House records confirm Eric invited Ukrainian lobbyist Alexandra Chalupa, a former Clinton White House and DNC employee, to the White House. She had been referred by Senate Judiciary Chairman Grassley (R-IA) to the DOJ for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 2016. Politico confirmed with Andrii Telizhenko, a Ukrainian Embassy official, that Ms. Chalupa was a liaison between the Ukraine embassy and DNC. Her bias is obvious: tweets referring to Tump as “Putin’s puppet” and the White House as “the #Kremlin Annex.”
Back to Ciaramella: he was an Obama hold-over, heading the Ukraine desk, until assigned in 2017 to the West Wing, where a co-worker claims “he saw everything [and] read everything” and was “passionate about Russia and Ukraine – that was his thing – Ukraine [and] he didn’t exactly hide his passion with what he thought was the right thing to do with Ukraine and Russia, and his views were at odds with the President’s policies.”
Hence, it’s no surprise Ciaramella sent a May 2017 email “outside his chain of command” that was confirmed in the Mueller report. He alerted John Kelly at DHS that Putin had called Trump one week before the Comey firing and Russian diplomats had been in the Oval Office the day after. Neither General Kelly nor Robert Mueller considered Ciaramella’s Trump-Russia allegation actionable.
However, that first “whistle” impressed Adam Schiff, who recruited two Ciaramella NSC allies in early 2019, hiring Sean Misko in August. News reports confirm Misko was the “staffer” who met with the whistleblower, and Republicans report Misko is the “staffer” feeding notes to Daniel Goldman (lead counsel for impeachment inquiry) during the hearings.
Republicans (Devin Nunes, Rand Paul, Jim Jordan, et al) are right to confirm Ciamarella’s role in Trump-Ukraine. I predict they’ll succeed because most Americans will want full disclosure of the whistleblower’s motives. With the 2020 election so close, and impeachment on the table, most Americans will insist on open-and-honest due process – even if Trump is not their guy.
If you care about democracy and the protection of every American’s rights, then share this article on Facebook and email it to your friends and family.
Take this simple binary test. Do you trust Rep. Adam Schiff’s (and his record of Trump animus) motives for keeping the whistleblower out of the public eye? Or do you trust Senator Rand Paul’s (and his record as a bill-of-rights libertarian) motives for having the whistleblower cross-examined under oath? This whistle was not blown over some infamous $400 hammer. It alleges a president is completely unfit to serve.
Coming Sunday…two new articles about how business and household finances will be cocked-up by America’s liberal party!