Paul Sperry writes for the Federalist about the impact of recently declassified documents.
A former inspector general who fast-tracked a “whistleblower” complaint that led to the first impeachment of President Trump in 2019 knew the whistleblower was a registered Democrat and Joe Biden loyalist yet still determined his complaint was “a matter of urgent concern that appeared credible,” according to newly declassified documents.
The documents also reveal the anonymous whistleblower secretly met with the Democratic staff of former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff prior to submitting his complaint in August 2019.
Yet under direct questioning, the whistleblower — later identified by RealClearInvestigations as intelligence analyst Eric Ciaramella — failed to disclose those contacts in interviews with IG investigators or on whistleblower forms, according to more than 350 pages of intel briefings Schiff classified as secret and locked up in a Capitol vault.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford released the papers this morning after National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard declassified them late last week. Justice Department insiders say the documents factor into an ongoing grand jury investigation into an alleged “grand conspiracy” by former Obama and Biden officials to illegally target Trump in political espionage activities.
Nonetheless, IG Michael Atkinson, then the intelligence community’s top watchdog, did not question the whistleblower’s political motivations, truthfulness, or credibility.
Atkinson conducted no investigation of his interactions with Schiff staffers to see if political bias played a role in the preparation of his complaint, which alleged that Trump “had clearly committed a criminal act” in a 30-minute phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. … The whistleblower was not in the White House at the time to witness the phone call and relied instead on the account of former White House colleague and political ally Alexander Vindman, who is now seeking a U.S. Senate seat in Florida as a Democrat.
