The Rooster
"Okeydoke"
29 September 2019
By Ed Pilkington
Lawyers (click here) acting for the whistleblower at the centre of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s attempts to solicit foreign help for his re-election campaign have warned that their client’s personal safety is in danger partly as a result of the president’s remarks.
Andrew Bakaj, the lead attorney for the unnamed intelligence official who sounded the alarm on Trump’s activities relating to Ukraine, expressed fears on Sunday that the whistleblower could be put “in harm’s way” were his or her identity made public. In a letter to the acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, Bakaj points directly at Trump’s aggressive statements that he said prompted “concerns for our client’s safety”.
The letter, first reported by 60 Minutes on CBS News, quotes Trump’s comments on Thursday to staff at the US mission to the UN in New York. In his remarks, made behind closed doors but reported by the New York Times, the US president made a thinly-veiled threat that showed disdain for the institutional protections afforded to whistleblowers under federal law....
Fear, intimidation and sabotage is Donald Trump's favorite moves. By demanding the whistleblower's identity be made public serves two purposes; it intimidates the whistleblower from future testimony or reporting and it also instills fear into others that can file whistleblower complaints.
"Methinks, the man doth protest too much."
