Biden staffer (or Biden) the Ukrane whistleblower?
Have copied here Bryon York's email received today:
September 17, 2020
Welcome to Byron York's Daily Memo newsletter.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to receive the newsletter.
THE BIDEN ANGLE IN TRUMP IMPEACHMENT. A year ago, House Democrats were gearing up to impeach President Trump over his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. There was much talk about allegations that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate the actions of Joe Biden and Biden's son Hunter in Ukraine, particularly Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal through which a corrupt Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma, paid him at least $50,000 a month to do mostly nothing.
So there was a lot of talk about a Biden angle in impeachment. But there was almost no discussion of another, inarguably consequential Biden angle in the Ukraine affair. And that concerned the beginning of the process that ended in the president's impeachment.
Remember the whistleblower? His complaint started what became the investigation. He filed it anonymously, and Democrats did everything in their power to keep his identity a secret. They succeeded.
Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine that will keep you up to date with what's going on in Washington.
Still, in the course of the impeachment, the public learned a bit about the whistleblower. In an August 26, 2019 letter to the Director of National Intelligence, the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, wrote that the whistleblower showed "some indicia of an arguable political bias...in favor of a rival political candidate."
What did that mean? Early reports said that was a reference to the fact that the whistleblower was a registered Democrat. He was, but that wasn't the story. On October 4, Atkinson testified before Chairman Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee. The session was in secret and no one was allowed to discuss publicly what was said.
Republicans wanted to know more about those "indicia" of "arguable political bias." Later, three sources who were familiar with the discussion of the whistleblower related what was said. "The IG said [the whistleblower] worked or had some type of professional relationship with one of the Democratic candidates," one knowledgeable source said. "The IG said the whistleblower had a professional relationship with one of the 2020 candidates," said another source. "What [Atkinson] said was that the whistleblower self-disclosed that he was a registered Democrat and that he had a prior working relationship with a current 2020 Democratic presidential candidate," said a third source. (There's more on this in my new book, "Obsession," about the long effort to remove Trump from office.)
Atkinson would not identify the Democratic candidate with whom the whistleblower had a connection. Later reporting showed that it was Joe Biden.
Still later, Republicans learned more about that "professional relationship." Vice President Biden was the Obama administration's lead official on Ukrainian issues. The whistleblower worked closely with Biden on those matters. There was much to be done -- phone calls with then-President Petro Poroshenko, coordination of travel to Ukraine and back, discussion of the issue of corruption, one of the enduring problems in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. The whistleblower was involved in all of it with Biden.
The bottom line: A man with "arguable political bias" for Joe Biden leveled the charge that grew into President Trump's impeachment, which Democrats in turn hoped would cripple the president politically going into re-election. It was done under a cover of anonymity that Democrats, in charge of House rules, strictly enforced. Throughout impeachment proceedings, Schiff forbade Republicans from asking any questions that might point toward the whistleblower's identity or his political biases. (Schiff also decreed that the transcript of Atkinson's testimony remain secret, and to this day, it has not been released.)
There can be no matter of greater public import than an attempt to remove a President of the United States. Yet Democrats did it with the aid of a public official with a political motivation whom they insisted must remain completely anonymous. It had nothing to do with the law -- despite Schiff's pronouncements, nothing in the law forbade Congress from identifying the whistleblower. Now, the question is whether that anonymity should continue, even as voters decide whether to give the president another term -- or whether to elect the anonymous accuser's favored candidate, Joe Biden.
September 17, 2020
Welcome to Byron York's Daily Memo newsletter.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to receive the newsletter.
THE BIDEN ANGLE IN TRUMP IMPEACHMENT. A year ago, House Democrats were gearing up to impeach President Trump over his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. There was much talk about allegations that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate the actions of Joe Biden and Biden's son Hunter in Ukraine, particularly Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal through which a corrupt Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma, paid him at least $50,000 a month to do mostly nothing.
So there was a lot of talk about a Biden angle in impeachment. But there was almost no discussion of another, inarguably consequential Biden angle in the Ukraine affair. And that concerned the beginning of the process that ended in the president's impeachment.
Remember the whistleblower? His complaint started what became the investigation. He filed it anonymously, and Democrats did everything in their power to keep his identity a secret. They succeeded.
Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine that will keep you up to date with what's going on in Washington.
Still, in the course of the impeachment, the public learned a bit about the whistleblower. In an August 26, 2019 letter to the Director of National Intelligence, the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, wrote that the whistleblower showed "some indicia of an arguable political bias...in favor of a rival political candidate."
What did that mean? Early reports said that was a reference to the fact that the whistleblower was a registered Democrat. He was, but that wasn't the story. On October 4, Atkinson testified before Chairman Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee. The session was in secret and no one was allowed to discuss publicly what was said.
Republicans wanted to know more about those "indicia" of "arguable political bias." Later, three sources who were familiar with the discussion of the whistleblower related what was said. "The IG said [the whistleblower] worked or had some type of professional relationship with one of the Democratic candidates," one knowledgeable source said. "The IG said the whistleblower had a professional relationship with one of the 2020 candidates," said another source. "What [Atkinson] said was that the whistleblower self-disclosed that he was a registered Democrat and that he had a prior working relationship with a current 2020 Democratic presidential candidate," said a third source. (There's more on this in my new book, "Obsession," about the long effort to remove Trump from office.)
Atkinson would not identify the Democratic candidate with whom the whistleblower had a connection. Later reporting showed that it was Joe Biden.
Still later, Republicans learned more about that "professional relationship." Vice President Biden was the Obama administration's lead official on Ukrainian issues. The whistleblower worked closely with Biden on those matters. There was much to be done -- phone calls with then-President Petro Poroshenko, coordination of travel to Ukraine and back, discussion of the issue of corruption, one of the enduring problems in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. The whistleblower was involved in all of it with Biden.
The bottom line: A man with "arguable political bias" for Joe Biden leveled the charge that grew into President Trump's impeachment, which Democrats in turn hoped would cripple the president politically going into re-election. It was done under a cover of anonymity that Democrats, in charge of House rules, strictly enforced. Throughout impeachment proceedings, Schiff forbade Republicans from asking any questions that might point toward the whistleblower's identity or his political biases. (Schiff also decreed that the transcript of Atkinson's testimony remain secret, and to this day, it has not been released.)
There can be no matter of greater public import than an attempt to remove a President of the United States. Yet Democrats did it with the aid of a public official with a political motivation whom they insisted must remain completely anonymous. It had nothing to do with the law -- despite Schiff's pronouncements, nothing in the law forbade Congress from identifying the whistleblower. Now, the question is whether that anonymity should continue, even as voters decide whether to give the president another term -- or whether to elect the anonymous accuser's favored candidate, Joe Biden.
