Unprecedented Number Of W.H. Whistleblowers Working Against Trump

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Eventually, someone at the White House was going to break. Watching Donald Trump bumble through the presidency and refuse to follow procedural rules was going to make someone too disgusted to keep silent. In September 2018, a senior White House official wrote an op-ed declaring a band of resistors, the “grown-ups” in the room in a White House ruled by Trump, and it appeared that the Trump team was breaking down then.

Now, trying to stop Trump internally has been accepted as impossible. Instead, whistleblowers are coming forward to report Trump’s unethical and corrupt acts to Congress.

At least one whistleblower has already come forward publicly. Tricia Newbold, who worked in the White House Personnel Security Office. Her alarm at Trump waving through security clearances despite drug use, foreign influence, and criminal activity finally led her to report him. On Saturday, The Atlantic reported that she is not alone.

‘Democrats on Capitol Hill say that beyond Newbold, a small army of whistle-blowers from across the government has been working in secret with the House Oversight Committee to report alleged malfeasance inside the Trump administration. Lawmakers and aides are reluctant to discuss information they have gleaned from anonymous government tipsters in detail. But the list of whistle-blowers who either currently or previously worked in the Trump administration, or who worked closely with the administration, numbers in the “dozens,” according to a senior aide from the committee now led by Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland.’

While members of Congress would not discuss what has been reported in order to protect the anonymity of those coming forward, they did explain that it is a result of Democrats gaining control of the House. Whistleblowers were too reluctant to come forward to Republican members of Congress, but now, they’re ready to tell their stories.

‘Committee veterans told me, however, that the number of whistle-blowers who’ve come forward since Trump became president is far higher than the number who cooperated with the panel during previous administrations. “The biggest difference wasn’t necessarily us switching to the majority; the biggest difference was Donald Trump being elected president,” said the Democratic aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the committee’s investigative work. Democrats began hearing from whistle-blowers almost immediately after Trump was sworn in, the aide said, beginning with a report that then–National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had been exchanging text messages with his business partner during the inauguration.

One of the reasons that whistleblowers have been afraid to come forward before was fear that they would be outed publicly and risk losing their jobs and, like Newbold, harrassed and receiving death threats.

‘Of the dozens of whistle-blowers Democrats said they are working with, they have publicly confirmed that a handful work in the White House. All but Newbold, however, have come forward on the condition that they remain anonymous. Newbold spoke to the committee as part of its investigation of White House security clearances, and she’s not the only whistle-blower involved in that matter, the panel confirmed in a memo describing her testimony.’

Democrats in Congress do not expect the deluge of whistleblowers coming forward to slow anytime soon with Trump still in office. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) told reporters that:

‘I think there are a lot of whistle-blowers out there, or potential whistle-blowers, who are certainly going to feel a lot more comfortable approaching us in the majority than the other side, especially in the Trump administration.’

Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license