The Beltway's
'Whistleblower' Furor Obsesses Over One Name
By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations
October 30, 2019, 4:21 PM Eastern
For a town that leaks like a sieve, Washington has done an
astonishingly effective job keeping from the American public the name of the
anonymous “whistleblower" who triggered impeachment proceedings
against President Trump — even though his identity is an open secret
inside the Beltway.
Eric Ciaramella as a class of 2004
Connecticut
prep student: He later moved on to
Yale and
the White House. Now he could be at the
center of an impeachment storm.
More than two months after the official filed his complaint,
pretty much all that’s known publicly about him is that he is a
CIA analyst who at one point was detailed to the White House and is now
back working at the CIA.
But the name of a government official fitting that
description — Eric Ciaramella — has been raised privately in
impeachment depositions, according to officials with direct knowledge of
the proceedings, as well as in at least one open hearing held by a House
committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry. Fearing their
anonymous witness could be exposed, Democrats this week blocked
Republicans from asking more questions about him and intend to redact his name
from all deposition transcripts.
RealClearInvestigations is disclosing the name because of
the public’s interest in learning details of an effort to remove a sitting
president from office. Further, the official's status as a “whistleblower” is
complicated by his being a hearsay reporter of accusations against the
president, one who has “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of
a rival political candidate" -- as the Intelligence Community
Inspector General phrased
it circumspectly in originally fielding his complaint.
Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a
registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked
with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a
vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation
of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
Joe Biden: Invited Ciaramella to
state
Luncheon with Italian premier. Also
invited:
Brennan, Comey, Clapper.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Further, Ciaramella (pronounced char-a-MEL-ah) left
his National Security Council posting in the White House’s West Wing in
mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since
returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
“He was accused of working against Trump and leaking
against Trump,” said a former NSC official, speaking on condition of anonymity
to discuss intelligence matters.
Also, Ciaramella huddled for “guidance” with the staff of
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, including former colleagues
also held over from the Obama era whom Schiff’s office had recently recruited from
the NSC. Schiff is the lead prosecutor in the impeachment inquiry.
And Ciaramella worked with a Democratic National
Committee operative who dug
up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, inviting her
into the White House for meetings, former White House colleagues said. The
operative, Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American who supported Hillary
Clinton, led an effort to link the Republican campaign to the Russian
government. “He knows her. He had her in the White House,” said one former
co-worker, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Alexandra Chalupa: DNC oppo
researcher was
invited to the Obama White House by
Ciaramella.
Afric Vision NouvelleTV/YouTube
Documents confirm
the DNC opposition researcher attended at least one White House
meeting with Ciaramella in November 2015. She visited the White
House with a number of Ukrainian officials lobbying the
Obama administration for aid for Ukraine.
With Ciaramella’s name long under wraps, interest in the
intelligence analyst is so high that a handful of former colleagues have
compiled a roughly 40-page research dossier on him. A classified version
of the document is circulating on Capitol Hill, and briefings have been
conducted based on it. One briefed Republican has been planning to unmask the
whistleblower in a speech on the House floor.
On the Internet, meanwhile, Ciaramella's name for weeks has
been bandied about on Twitter feeds and intelligence blogs as the
suspected person who blew the whistle on the president. The mainstream media are
also aware of his name.
Fred Fleitz, Trump adviser:
“Everyone knows who he
is."
fredfleitz.com/Wikimedia
“Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post
knows. The New York Times knows. Congress knows. The White House knows.
Even the president knows who he is,” said Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and
national security adviser to Trump, who has fielded dozens of calls from
the media.
Yet a rare hush has swept across the Potomac. The usually
gossipy nation’s capital remains uncharacteristically — and curiously —
mum, especially considering the magnitude of this story, only the fourth
presidential impeachment inquiry in U.S. history.
Trump supporters blame the conspiracy of silence on a
“corrupt” and "biased” media trying to protect the whistleblower from
justified scrutiny of his political motives. They also complain Democrats have
falsely claimed that exposing his identity would violate whistleblower
protections, even though the relevant statute provides limited, not blanket,
anonymity – and doesn’t cover press disclosures. His Democrat attorneys,
meanwhile, have warned that outing him would put him and his family “at
risk of harm," although government security personnel have been
assigned to protect him.
“They’re hiding him,” Fleitz asserted. “They’re hiding him
because of his political bias."
A CIA officer specializing in Russia and Ukraine,
Ciaramella was detailed over to the National Security Council from the
agency in the summer of 2015, working under Susan Rice, President Obama’s national
security adviser. He also worked closely with the former vice president.
Susan Rice: Ciaramella worked
under
Obama's national security adviser.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File
Federal records show
that Biden’s office invited Ciaramella to an October 2016 state luncheon the
vice president hosted for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Other
invited guests included Brennan, as well as then-FBI Director James Comey and
then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper.
Several U.S. officials told RealClearInvestigations that
the invitation that was extended to Ciaramella, a relatively low-level GS-13
federal employee, was unusual and signaled he was politically connected
inside the Obama White House.
Former White House officials said Ciaramella worked on
Ukrainian policy issues for Biden in 2015 and 2016, when the vice
president was President Obama's "point man" for Ukraine. A Yale
graduate, Ciaramella is said to speak Russian and Ukrainian, as well as
Arabic. He had been assigned to the NSC by Brennan.
He was held over into the Trump administration, and headed
the Ukraine desk at the NSC, eventually transitioning into the West Wing,
until June 2017.
“He was moved over to the front office” to temporarily fill
a vacancy, said a former White House official, where he “saw everything, read
everything.”
The official added that it soon became clear among NSC
staff that Ciaramella opposed the new Republican president’s foreign policies.
“My recollection of Eric is that he was very smart and very passionate,
particularly about Ukraine and Russia. That was his thing – Ukraine,” he said.
“He didn’t exactly hide his passion with respect to what he thought was the
right thing to do with Ukraine and Russia, and his views were at odds with the
president’s policies.”
“So I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the whistleblower,”
the official said.
In May 2017, Ciaramella went “outside his chain of
command,” according to a former NSC co-worker, to send an email alerting
another agency that Trump happened to hold a meeting with Russian
diplomats in the Oval Office the day after firing Comey, who led the
Trump-Russia investigation. The email also noted that Russian President
Vladimir Putin had phoned the president a week earlier.
Contents of the email appear to have ended up in the media,
which reported Trump boasted to the Russian officials about firing Comey,
whom he allegedly called “crazy, a real nut job.”
In effect, Ciaramella helped generate the “Putin fired
Comey” narrative, according to the research dossier making the rounds in
Congress, a copy of which was obtained by RealClearInvestigations.
Ciaramella allegedly argued that “President Putin suggested
that President Trump fire Comey,” the report said. “In the days after
Comey’s firing, this presidential action was used to further political and
media calls for the standup [sic] of the special counsel to investigate
‘Russia collusion.’ “
In the end, Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no
conspiracy between Trump and Putin. Ciaramella’s email was cited in
a footnote in
his report, which mentions only Ciaramella’s name, the date and the recipients
“Kelly et al.” Former colleagues said the main recipient was then-Homeland
Security Director John Kelly.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Adam
Schiff: "Whistleblower"
complaint amounts to
impeachable offense.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Ciaramella left the Trump White House soon after Mueller
was appointed. Attempts to reach Ciaramella were unsuccessful, although his
father said in a phone interview from Hartford, where he is a bank executive,
that he doubted his son was the whistleblower. “He didn’t have that kind of
access to that kind of information,” Tony Ciaramella said. “He’s just a guy
going to work every day.” The whistleblower's lawyers did not answer emails and
phone calls seeking comment. CIA spokesman Luis Rossello declined comment,
saying, “Anything on the whistleblower, we are referring to ODNI.” The Office
of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for
comment.
In his complaint,
the whistleblower charged that the president used “the power of his office
to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S.
election.” Specifically, he cited a controversial July 25 phone call from
the White House residence in which Trump asked Ukraine’s new president to help
investigate the origins of the Russia “collusion” investigation the Obama
administration initiated against his campaign, citing reports that “a lot
of it started with Ukraine," where the former pro-Hillary Clinton
regime in Kiev worked with Obama diplomats and Chalupa to try
to “sabotage” Trump’s
run for president.
Later in the conversation,
Trump also requested information about Biden and his son, since “Biden went
around bragging that he” had fired the chief Ukrainian prosecutor at the
time a Ukrainian oligarch, who gave Biden’s son a lucrative seat on the
board of his energy conglomerate, was under investigation for corruption.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee Chairman
Schiff argued the whistleblower's complaint, though admittedly based on
second-hand information, amounts to an impeachable offense, and they
subsequently launched an impeachment inquiry that has largely been
conducted in secret.
The whistleblower filed his “urgent” report against Trump
with the I.C. inspector general on Aug. 12, but it was not publicly
released until Sept. 26.
Prior to filing, he had met with Schiff’s Democratic staff
for “guidance." At first, the California lawmaker denied the contacts,
but later admitted that his office did, in fact, meet with the whistleblower
early on.
Sean Misko: One of Ciaramella’s
closest allies
at the NSC, now on Schiff's committee
staff.
Center for a New American Security
Earlier this year, Schiff recruited two of Ciaramella’s
closest allies at the NSC — both whom were also Obama holdovers -- to join
his committee staff. He hired one, Sean Misko, in August — the same month
the whistleblower complaint was filed.
During closed-door depositions taken in the impeachment
inquiry, Misko has been observed handing notes to the lead counsel for the
impeachment inquiry, Daniel Goldman, as he asks questions of Trump
administration witnesses, officials with direct knowledge of the
proceedings told RealClearInvestigations.
Republicans participating in the restricted inquiry
hearings have been asking witnesses about Ciaramella and repeatedly injecting his
name into the deposition record, angering Schiff and Democrats, who
sources say are planning to scrub the references to Ciaramella from any
transcripts of the hearings they may agree to release.
“Their reaction tells you something,” said one official familiar
with the inquiry.
For example, sources said Ciaramella’s name was invoked by
GOP committee members during the closed-door testimony of former NSC
official Fiona Hill on Oct. 14. Ciaramella worked with Hill, another Obama
holdover, in the West Wing.
During Tuesday’s deposition of NSC official Alexander
Vindman, Democrats shut down a line of inquiry by Republicans because they
said it risked revealing the identity of the whistleblower. Republicans wanted
to know with whom Vindman spoke within the administration about his
concerns regarding Trump’s call to Ukraine. But Schiff instructed the witness
not to answer the questions, which reportedly sparked
a shouting match between Democrats and Republicans.
Determined to keep the whistleblower's identity secret,
Schiff recently announced it may not be necessary for him to testify even
in closed session. Republicans argue that by hiding his identity, the public
cannot assess his motives for striking out against the president. And they
worry his political bias could color inquiry testimony and findings unless it’s
exposed.
Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Oversight
Committee, asserted the American people have the right to know the person
who is trying to bring down the president for whom 63 million voted.
“It’s tough to determine someone’s credibility if you can’t
put them under oath and ask them questions,” he said.
Added Jordan: “The people want to know. I want to get to
the truth."
Rep. Louis Gohmert: Ciaramella was
“supposed
to be a point person on Ukraine,
during the time
when Ukraine was its most corrupt,
and he didn’t
blow any whistles on their
corruption."
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
In an open House Natural Resources Committee hearing last
week, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) seemingly out of left field asked a
witness about “Eric Ciaramella of the Obama National Security Council,” in what
the Washington press corps took as a bid to out the whistleblower. He
later told a Dallas radio station he knew the whistleblower’s name. “A lot
of us in Washington know who it is,” Gohmert said, adding he’s a “very
staunch Democrat” who was “supposed to be a point person on Ukraine,
during the time when Ukraine was its most corrupt, and he didn’t blow any
whistles on their corruption."
The Washington Post ran a news story over
the weekend critical of Republicans for allegedly trying to “unmask” the
whistleblower, for attempting to do the job journalists would normally do. Last
week, the paper ran an op-ed
by the whistleblower’s attorneys claiming he was no longer relevant to
the inquiry and beseeching the public to let their client slip back into
obscurity.
For its part, the New York Times ran a story last
month reporting details about the whistleblower’s background, but stopped
short of fully identifying him, suggesting it didn’t know his politics or even
his name. “Little else is known about him,” the paper claimed.
On Thursday, Democrats plan a House vote on new
impeachment-inquiry rules that would give Republicans for the first time
the ability to call their own witnesses. Only, their requests must first be
approved by the Democrats. So there is a good chance the whistleblower,
perhaps the most important witness of all, will remain protected from critical
examination.
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