Donald Trump is not having a good weekend. As he continues to face the fallout from an initial whistleblower complaint covering his attempt to get Ukraine to come up with dirt on the Bidens that could be useful for Trump’s re-election campaign, a second whistleblower who in this case has firsthand knowledge of the events in question has reportedly come forward behind the scenes and sat for an interview with the intelligence community’s inspector general. That’s the same individual — Michael Atkinson — who determined that the original whistleblower complaint was “credible.”
Now, ABC News reports:
‘Mark Zaid, the attorney representing the whistleblower who sounded the alarm on President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and triggered an impeachment inquiry, tells ABC News that he is now representing a second whistleblower who has spoken with the inspector general.’
The New York Times has previously reported that a second intelligence community official was considering coming forward with their own accounts of the scrutinized events in question, but Zaid said at one point that he was unaware if his new client is the same individual who was referred to in that report.
ABC notes that a second whistleblower’s testimony “could undercut Trump’s repeated insistence that the original complaint, released on Sept. 26, was ‘totally inaccurate,'” although we’ve already got plenty of indications to that effect because we can all see the call record of a conversation Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the White House themselves released. In that record, Trump bluntly pressures the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens, suggesting they get in touch with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr to further that effort.
