Donald Trump has been threatening violence and spewing malevolence as the investigation into Ukrainegate continues. That is disturbing, very disturbing. It also places the whistleblower in great peril. This is the latest.
The attorneys for the whistleblower who filed a legal complaint against the president regarding a pattern of inappropriate behavior warned that Trump’s words have threatened the safety of his client. Trump has called him a “traitor,” according to Axios. The letter read:
‘The purpose of this letter is to formally notify you of serious concerns we have regarding our client’s personal safety. 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.”
Lead attorney for whistleblower Andrew Bakaj said:
‘We expect this situation to worsen, and to become even more dangerous for our client and any other whistleblowers.’
Bakaj referred to Trump’s comments at the UN, where he called the whistleblower a “traitor” and hinted strongly at the consequences speaking truth to power could entail, Tthe attorney said:
‘The fact that the president’s statement was directed to ‘the person that gave the whistleblower the information’ does nothing to assuage our concerns for our client’s safety. Unfortunately, we expect this situation to worsen, and to become even more dangerous for our client and any other whistleblowers, as Congress seeks to investigate this matter.’
Attorney for other whistleblowers during the Barack Obama administration Jake Zuckerberg told The Washington Post he was “extraordinarily concerned'”
‘I’m extraordinarily concerned about the impact of how this complaint was handled. Any federal employee who hears the reaction from the White House will think, ‘”f I blow the whistle, I will likely be subject to a personal attack.” No one wants to ruin their reputation, but we depend on federal employees to blow the whistle on waste, fraud and abuse.’
According to The Mother Jones‘ reporter Ari Berman’s tweet, this whistleblower’s complaint went into the details of the issue, calling it “as bad, if not worse, than Watergate:”
‘Instead of hiring burglars to investigate political rival. Trump asked a foreign government to do it for him and then tried to cover it up.’
The whistleblower’s attorneys’ letter went out just before the commander-in-chief accused him of “spying on the U.S. president” and threatened “big consequences:”
Trump tweeted:
‘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. In addition, I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND and THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information.’
Human rights advocates, who warned that Trump was trying to intimidate this and future whistleblowers:
‘The President of the United States is calling the whistleblower a spy and threatening “big consequences. If we saw this behavior in another country, the word “democracy” wouldn’t leap to mind.’
General counsel at the nonprofit National Whistleblower Center David Colapinto told the Washington Post:
‘The system of whistleblowing will fail in the intelligence community if that complaint is not transmitted to Congress. To have a whistleblower complaint verified as credible and urgent and not end up where it’s supposed to go would be the worst possible outcome. There would be a crisis in confidence in the intelligence community.’
Political scientist Miranda Yaver tweeted about the whistleblower situation:
‘If we saw this behavior in another country, the word ‘democracy’ wouldn’t leap to mind.’
Executive Director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth said, according to Axios:
‘Threats against a whistleblower are not only illegal—the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989—but also indicative of a cover-up.’
The whistleblower’s complaint claimed that the president was trying to cover up a phone call between Trump and the newly-elected president of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky:
‘In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to “lock-down” all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced—as is customary—by the White House situation room.’
H/T Raw Story:
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
