Whistleblower Willing To Submit Written Answers To House Republicans, Lawyer Says
The intelligence community whistleblower who filed a complaint against President Donald Trump is willing to answer questions from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee in writing, his lawyer said Sunday.
The attorney, Mark Zaid, said that he reached out on Saturday to Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, to offer to provide written answers under oath to Republicans.
The proposal would allow Republicans to circumvent the intelligence panel’s Democratic majority, led by Rep. Adam Schiff, who has unilateral power to call witnesses as part of the impeachment inquiry of Trump.
Zaid said that the whistleblower, who is reported to be a CIA analyst, will not respond to questions about his identity.
WBer NEWS ALERT:
1/Our legal team offered GOP direct opportunity to ask written questions of #whistleblower.
Recent GOP messaging, led by President Trump (incl this morning), has been to highlight original #WBer & demand disclosure of identity.
— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) November 3, 2019
Trump and a handful of House Republicans have called for the whistleblower to be identified. Democrats and the whistleblower’s lawyers argue that the identity of the analyst is irrelevant given testimony given by other witnesses in the the impeachment inquiry.
The whistleblower’s lawyers, Zaid and Andrew Bakaj, have floated vague legal threats to deter news outlets from identifying their client. On Thursday, they said in a statement that news outlets will be “personally liable” if the whistleblower is harmed if they are identified. Government whistleblowers are legally protected from being identified by their government agencies, but there are no laws prohibiting journalists from identifying whistleblowers.
House Republicans have questioned the whistleblower’s possible political bias, and his contacts prior to filing the Trump complaint with an aide in Schiff’s office. Republicans have downplayed the whistleblower’s allegations against Trump by arguing that he did not have first-hand knowledge of the information laid out in the Aug. 12 complaint.
The whistleblower accused Trump of abusing his power in his dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The complaint centers on a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Zelensky to consider investigating whether Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. election, and whether Joe Biden pressured Ukraine in 2016 to shut down an investigation into Burisma Holdings, an energy firm that had Hunter Biden as a board member.
The whistleblower did not listen to the phone call, but relayed what he said were concerns expressed by White House officials regarding the Trump-Zelensky phone call.
Schiff initially wanted to call the whistleblower to testify before Congress, but he backed away from the proposal after it was revealed that an aide in his office had contact with the whistleblower prior to him filing the Trump complaint.
The Schiff aide’s contact with the whistleblower was not revealed until Oct. 3, weeks after Schiff had mounted a pressure campaign to force the release of the complaint.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org
How can we or the courts be assured that the written replies are coming from the sworn-in Whistle Blower and not Adam Schiff’s notes and directions?
How is it possible to properly cross examine such a person on the finds?
To me it seems like a clear violation of the Bill of Rights #6 “….to be confronted with the witnesses against him…” Any Secret witnesses are clear violation of the 6th Amendment.