The impeachment case against US President Donald Trump took another extraordinary turn yesterday, amid reports that “multiple” whistleblowers have come forward in connection with claims Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.
The news came via lawyers representing the original whistleblower at the centre of the political storm. Attorney Andrew Bakaj told the Washington Post that a second whistleblower has spoken to the inspector general of the intelligence community, and the person has “first hand knowledge that supported the first whistleblower”.
ABC broke the story yesterday:
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“I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General,” wrote Bakaj, in a tweet. “No further comment at this time.”
Another member of the legal team, Mark Zaid, corroborated the claim.
Some Republicans were quick to downplay the significance of the revelation. “It does not matter,” Chris Stewart, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee told Fox News Sunday. “This person is going to come forward and say, yep the president had this phone call,” he said. “And yep, that's the transcript. Why should I care at all what his opinion and judgment of this transcript is? You and I can read it.”
The impeachment inquiry is examining evidence that Trump withheld security assistance funds and a White House visit from President Volodymyr Zelensky until he agreed to open investigations into Joe Biden and his son Hunter regarding their business dealings in Ukraine.
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Writing in the Washington Post, Joe Biden ended a period of silence on Trump’s attempts to start an investigation into his conduct in Ukraine, retaliating strongly:
“To Trump and those who facilitate his abuses of power, and all the special interests funding his attacks against me: Please know that I’m not going anywhere. You won’t destroy me, and you won’t destroy my family. And come November 2020, I intend to beat you like a drum.”
The case builds
Text messages between senior diplomats also suggest that Ukraine was pressed to investigate an unfounded conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US presidential campaign.
Tomorrow, Gordon Sondland, a hotel magnate and major Trump donor who was made US ambassador to the European Union in June last year, will testify to Congress after bombshell text messages revealed his involvement in the meetings and negotiations that led up to the Trump-Zelensky call of 25 July.
In texts with Bill Taylor, the top American diplomat in the US embassy in Kiev, Sondland addresses Taylor’s concerns. “Are we now saying that security assistance and a [White House] meeting are conditioned on investigations?” Taylor asked. Sondland responded: “Call me.”
However, later, on 1 September - after the White House learnt of the nature of the whistleblower complaint against the president - Sondland denied the interpretation.
Taylor wrote: “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” Sondland responded that Taylor was “incorrect about President Trump’s intentions” and “the President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s [sic] of any kind.”
A president at war
“It doesn’t matter how many people decide to call themselves whistleblowers about the same telephone call — a call the president already made public — it doesn’t change the fact that he has done nothing wrong,” said Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary.
The President and his team remain defiant:
However, The Guardian reports on a White House that is notably lacking people coming to its defence. “Trump’s would-be defenders in the Republican ranks, with the notable exception of two figures who themselves are deeply implicated in the Ukraine affair – secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani – have fallen mostly silent,” writes Tom McCarthy.
“No Trump defender from the White House appeared on the US Sunday morning news shows, nor did any members of the congressional Republican political leadership.”
