{"id":5636,"date":"2020-01-26T15:04:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-26T19:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=5636"},"modified":"2020-01-26T15:04:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T19:04:47","slug":"whistleblower-eric-ciaramella-wanted-to-remove-trump-from-office-back-in-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=5636","title":{"rendered":"Whistleblower Eric Ciaramella Wanted To Remove Trump from Office Back in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whistleblower Was Overheard in ’17 Discussing With Ally How to Remove Trump<\/h1>\n

By\u00a0Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations
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Eric Ciaramella, right. He and a colleague, Sean Misko, below — both now central to impeachment — were Obama administration holdovers (whitehouse.gov).<\/p><\/div>\n

Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric Ciaramella \u2013 the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the anonymous \u201cwhistleblower” who touched off Trump’s impeachment \u2013 was overheard in the White House discussing with another staffer how to remove the newly elected president from office, according to former colleagues.<\/p>\n

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Sean Misko: He spoke with Ciaramella about the need to “take out,” or remove, President Trump. Later he went to work for Rep. Adam Schiff’s committee.<\/div>\n
Center for a New American Security<\/div>\n
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Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. And both expressed anger over Trump\u2019s new \u201cAmerica First\u201d foreign policy, a sea change from President Obama\u2019s approach to international affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust days after he was sworn in they were already talking about trying to get rid of him,\u201d said a White House colleague who overheard their conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t just bent on subverting his agenda,\u201d the former official added. \u201cThey were plotting to actually have him removed from office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Misko left the White House last summer to join House impeachment manager Adam Schiff\u2019s committee, where sources say he offered \u201cguidance\u201d to the whistleblower, who has been officially identified only as an intelligence officer in a complaint against Trump filed under whistleblower laws. Misko then helped run the impeachment inquiry based on that complaint as a top investigator for congressional Democrats.<\/p>\n

The probe culminated in Trump\u2019s impeachment last month on a party-line vote in the House of Representatives. Schiff and other House Democrats last week delivered the articles of impeachment to the Senate, and are now pressing the case for his removal during the trial, which began Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The coordination between the official believed to be the whistleblower and a key Democratic staffer, details of which are disclosed here for the first time, undercuts the narrative that impeachment developed spontaneously out of what Trump’s Democratic antagonists call the \u201cpatriotism” of an \u201capolitical civil servant.”<\/p>\n

Two former co-workers said they overheard Ciaramella and Misko, close friends and Democrats, discussing how to \u201ctake out,\u201d or remove, the new president from office within days of Trump\u2019s inauguration. These co-workers said the president\u2019s controversial Ukraine phone call in July 2019 provided the pretext they and their Democratic allies had been looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t like his policies,\u201d another former White House official said. “They had a political vendetta against him from Day One.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Impeachment manager Adam Schiff speaks during the impeachment trial of President Trump in the Senate on Tuesday.<\/div>\n
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Their efforts were part of a larger pattern of coordination to build a case for impeachment, involving Democratic leaders as well as anti-Trump figures both inside and outside of government.<\/p>\n

All unnamed sources for this article spoke only on condition that they not be further identified or described. Although strong evidence points to Ciaramella as the government employee who lodged the whistleblower complaint, he has not been officially identified as such. As a result, this article makes a distinction between public information released about the unnamed whistleblower\/CIA analyst and specific information about Ciaramella.<\/p>\n

Democrats based their impeachment case on the whistleblower complaint, which alleges that President Trump sought to help his re-election campaign by demanding that Ukraine\u2019s leader investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid. Yet Schiff, who heads the House Intelligence Committee, and other Democrats have insisted on keeping the identity of the whistleblower secret, citing concern for his safety, while arguing that his testimony no longer matters because other witnesses and documents have \u201ccorroborated” what he alleged in his complaint about the Ukraine call.<\/p>\n

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Hunter and Joe Biden: Subjects of the Ukraine phone call at the center of Trump’s impeachment.<\/div>\n
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Republicans have fought unsuccessfully to call him as a witness, arguing that his motivations and associations are relevant \u2013 and that the president has the same due-process right to confront his accuser as any other American.<\/p>\n

The whistleblower\u2019s candor is also being called into question. \u00a0It turns out that the CIA operative failed to report his contacts with Schiff\u2019s office to the intelligence community\u2019s inspector general who fielded his whistleblower complaint. He withheld the information both in interviews with the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, and in writing, according to impeachment committee investigators. The whistleblower form he filled out required him to disclose whether he had \u201ccontacted other entities\u201d — including \u201cmembers of Congress.\u201d But he left that section blank on the disclosure form he signed.<\/p>\n

The investigators say that details about how the whistleblower consulted with Schiff\u2019s staff and perhaps misled Atkinson about those interactions are contained in the transcript of a closed-door briefing Atkinson gave to the House Intelligence Committee last October. However, Schiff has sealed the transcript from public view. It is the only impeachment witness transcript out of 18 that he has not released.<\/p>\n

Schiff has classified the document \u201cSecret,\u201d preventing Republicans who attended the Atkinson briefing from quoting from it. Even impeachment investigators cannot view it outside a highly secured room, known as a \u201cSCIF,” in the basement of the Capitol. Members must first get permission from Schiff, and they are forbidden from bringing phones into the SCIF or from taking notes from the document.<\/p>\n

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Sen. Rand Paul: Among the few lawmakers who have publicly demanded that Ciaramella testify regarding the whistleblower’s complaint.<\/div>\n
AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite, File<\/div>\n
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While the identity of the whistleblower remains unconfirmed, at least officially, Trump recently retweeted a message naming Ciaramella, while Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Louie Gohmert of the House Judiciary Committee have publicly demanded that Ciaramella testify about his role in the whistleblower complaint.<\/p>\n

During last year\u2019s closed-door House depositions of impeachment witnesses, Ciaramella\u2019s name was invoked in heated discussions about the whistleblower, as RealClearInvestigations first\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0Oct. 30, and has appeared in at least one testimony transcript. Congressional Republicans complain Schiff and his staff counsel have redacted his name from other documents.<\/p>\n

Lawyers representing the whistleblower have neither confirmed nor denied that Ciaramella is their client. In November, after Donald Trump Jr. named Ciaramella and cited RCI’s story in a series of tweets, however, they sent a \u201ccease and desist\u201d\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to the White House demanding Trump and his \u201csurrogates” stop \u201cattacking” him. And just as the whistleblower complaint was made public in September, Ciaramella\u2019s social media postings and profiles were scrubbed from the Internet.<\/p>\n

\u2018Take Out\u2019 the President<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ciaramella in early 2017 expressed hostility toward the newly elected president during White House meetings, his co-workers said in interviews with RealClearInvestigations. They added that Ciaramella sought to have Trump removed from office long before the filing of the whistleblower complaint.<\/p>\n

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Michael Flynn: Ciaramella and Misko were alarmed by Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, outlined by the president’s first national security adviser.<\/div>\n
AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta<\/div>\n
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At the time, the CIA operative worked on loan to the White House as a top Ukrainian analyst in the National Security Council, where he had previously served as an adviser on Ukraine to Vice President Biden. The whistleblower\u00a0complaint<\/a>\u00a0cites Biden, alleging that Trump demanded Ukraine\u2019s newly elected leader investigate him and his son “to help the president\u2019s 2020 reelection bid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two NSC co-workers told RCI that they overheard Ciaramella and Misko – who was also working at the NSC as an analyst – making anti-Trump remarks to each other while attending a staff-wide NSC meeting called by then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, where they sat together in the south auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex.<\/p>\n

The \u201call hands\u201d meeting, held about two weeks into the new administration, was attended by hundreds of NSC employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were popping off about how they were going to remove Trump from office. No joke,\u201d said one ex-colleague, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.<\/p>\n

A military staffer detailed to the NSC, who was seated directly in front of Ciaramella and Misko during the meeting, confirmed hearing them talk about toppling Trump during their private conversation, which the source said lasted about one minute. The crowd was preparing to get up to leave the room at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Flynn briefed [the staff] about what \u2018America first\u2019 foreign policy means, Ciaramella turned to Misko and commented, \u2018We need to take him out,\u2019 \u201d the staffer recalled. \u201cAnd Misko replied, \u2018Yeah, we need to do everything we can to take out the president.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

Added the military detailee, who spoke on condition of anonymity: \u201cBy \u2018taking him out,\u2019 they meant removing him from office by any means necessary. They were triggered by Trump\u2019s and Flynn\u2019s vision for the world. This was the first \u2018all hands\u2019 [staff meeting] where they got to see Trump\u2019s national security team, and they were huffing and puffing throughout the briefing any time Flynn said something they didn\u2019t like about \u2018America First.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

He said he also overheard Ciaramella telling Misko, referring to Trump, \u2018We can\u2019t let him enact this foreign policy.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

Alarmed by their conversation, the military staffer immediately reported what he heard to his superiors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so shocking that they were so blatant and outspoken about their opinion,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThey weren\u2019t shouting it, but they didn\u2019t seem to feel the need to hide it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The co-workers didn\u2019t think much more about the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just thought they were wacky,\u201d the first source said. \u201cLittle did we know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Ciaramella nor Misko could be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

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Alexander Vindman: The National Security Council aide leaked to Ciaramella details of the July 25 Trump-Ukraine phone call. Like Ciaramella, Vindman expressed disdain for Trump, co-workers said.<\/div>\n
AP Photo\/Susan Walsh<\/div>\n
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A CIA alumnus, Misko had previously assisted Biden\u2019s top national security aide Jake Sullivan. Former NSC staffers said Misko was Ciaramella\u2019s closest and most trusted ally in the Trump White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cEric and Sean were very tight and spent nearly two years together at the NSC,\u201d said a former supervisor who requested anonymity. \u201cBoth of them were paranoid about Trump.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were thick as thieves,\u201d added the first NSC source. \u201cThey sat next to each other and complained about Trump all the time. They were buddies. They weren\u2019t just colleagues. They were buddies outside the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

The February 2017 incident wasn\u2019t the only time the pair exhibited open hostility toward the president. During the following months, both were\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0internally of leaking negative information about Trump to the media.<\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s controversial call to the new president of Ukraine this past summer — in which he asked the foreign leader for help with domestic investigations involving the Obama administration, including Biden — gave them the opening they were looking for.<\/p>\n

A mutual ally in the National Security Council who was one of the White House officials authorized to listen in on Trump’s July 25 conversation with Ukraine\u2019s president leaked it to Ciaramella the next day \u2014 July 26 \u2014\u00a0 according to former NSC co-workers and congressional sources. The friend, Ukraine-born Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, held Ciaramella\u2019s old position at the NSC as director for Ukraine. Although Ciaramella had left the White House to return to the CIA in mid-2017, the two officials continued to collaborate through interagency meetings.<\/p>\n

Vindman leaked what he\u2019d heard to Ciaramella by phone that afternoon, the sources said. In their conversation, which lasted a few minutes, he described Trump\u2019s call as \u201ccrazy,\u201d and speculated he had \u201ccommitted a criminal act.\u201d Neither reviewed the transcript of the call before the White House released it months later.<\/p>\n

NSC co-workers said that Vindman, like Ciaramella, openly expressed his disdain for Trump whose foreign policy was often at odds with the recommendations of “the interagency” \u2014 a network of agency working groups comprised of intelligence bureaucrats, experts and diplomats who regularly meet to craft and coordinate policy positions inside the federal government.<\/p>\n

Before he was detailed to the White House, Vindman served in the U.S. Army, where he once received a reprimand from a superior officer for badmouthing and ridiculing America in front of Russian soldiers his unit was training with during a joint 2012 exercise in Germany.<\/p>\n

His commanding officer, Army Lt. Col. Jim Hickman, complained that Vindman, then a major, \u201cwas apologetic of American culture, laughed about Americans not being educated or worldly and really talked up Obama and globalism to the point of [it being] uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVindman was a partisan Democrat at least as far back as 2012,\u201d Hickman, now retired,\u00a0asserted<\/a>. \u201cDo not let the uniform fool you. He is a political activist in uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attempts to reach Vindman through his lawyer were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

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Fred Fleitz: Former chief of staff to John Bolton says it was obvious the whistleblower was coached in writing his complaint.<\/div>\n
fredfleitz.com\/Wikimedia<\/div>\n
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July 26 was also the day that Schiff hired Misko to head up the investigation of Trump, congressional employment records show. Misko, in turn, secretly huddled with the whistleblower prior to filing his Aug. 12 complaint, according to multiple congressional sources, and shared what he told him with Schiff, who initially denied the contacts before press accounts revealed them.<\/p>\n

Schiff\u2019s office has also denied helping the whistleblower prepare his complaint, while rejecting a Republican subpoena for documents relating to it. But Capitol Hill veterans and federal whistleblower experts are suspicious of that account.<\/p>\n

Fred Fleitz, who fielded a number of whistleblower complaints from the intelligence community as a former senior House Intelligence Committee staff member, said it was obvious that the CIA analyst had received coaching in writing the nine-page whistleblower\u00a0report<\/a>.<\/u><\/p>\n

“From my experience, such an extremely polished whistleblowing complaint is unheard of,\u201d Fleitz, also a former CIA analyst, said. \u201cHe appears to have collaborated in drafting his complaint with partisan House Intelligence Committee members and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fleitz, who recently served as chief of staff to former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said the complaint appears to have been tailored to buttress an impeachment charge of soliciting the \u201cinterference\u201d of a foreign government in the election.<\/p>\n

And the whistleblower\u2019s unsupported allegation became the foundation for Democrats’ first\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0of impeachment against the president. It even adopts the language used by the CIA analyst in his complaint, which Fleitz said reads more like \u201ca political document.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside Help<\/strong><\/p>\n

After providing the outlines of his complaint to Schiff\u2019s staff, the CIA analyst was referred to whistleblower attorney Andrew Bakaj by a mutual friend “who is an attorney and expert in national security law,\u201d according to the Washington Post, which did not identify the go-between.<\/p>\n

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Andrew Bakaj: Whistleblower lawyer\u00a0worked with Ciaramella at the CIA.<\/div>\n
Compass Rose Legal Group<\/div>\n
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A former CIA officer, Bakaj had worked with Ciaramella at the spy agency. They have even more in common: like the 33-year-old Ciaramella, the 37-year-old Bakaj is a Connecticut native who has spent time in Ukraine. He’s also contributed money to Biden\u2019s presidential campaign and once worked for former Sen. Hillary Clinton. He\u2019s also briefed the intelligence panel Schiff chairs.<\/p>\n

Bakaj brought in another whistleblower lawyer, Mark Zaid, to help on the case. A Democratic donor and a politically active anti-Trump \u00a0advocate, Zaid was willing to help represent the CIA analyst. On Jan. 30, 2017, around the same time former colleagues say they overheard Ciaramella and Misko conspiring to take Trump out, Zaid tweeted that a \u201ccoup has started\u201d and that \u201cimpeachment will follow ultimately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Bakaj nor Zaid responded to requests for an interview.<\/p>\n

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Mark Zaid: This whistleblower lawyer tweeted that a \u201ccoup has started\u201d around the same time former colleagues say they overheard Ciaramella and Misko conspiring to remove Trump.<\/div>\n
Compass Rose Legal Group<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s not clear who the mutual friend and national security attorney was whom the analyst turned to for additional help after meeting with Schiff\u2019s staff. But people familiar with the matter say that former Justice Department national security lawyer David Laufman involved himself early on in the whistleblower case.<\/p>\n

Also a former CIA officer, Laufman was promoted by the Obama administration to run counterintelligence cases, including the high-profile investigations of Clinton\u2019s classified emails and the Trump campaign\u2019s alleged ties to Russia. Laufman sat in on Clinton\u2019s July 2016 FBI interview. He also signed off on the wiretapping of a Trump campaign adviser, which the Department of Justice inspector general determined was conducted under false pretenses involving doctored emails, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and other malfeasance. Laufman\u2019s office was implicated in the inspector general’s report detailing the surveillance misconduct.<\/p>\n

Laufman could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

Laufman and Zaid are old friends who have worked together on legal matters in the past. \u201cI would not hesitate to join forces with him on complicated cases,\u201d Zaid said of Laufman in a recommendation posted on his LinkedIn page.<\/p>\n

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David Laufman: Fellow lawyer defended Mark Zaid on Twitter against attacks by President Trump.<\/div>\n
wiggin.com<\/a><\/div>\n
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Laufman recently defended Zaid on Twitter after Trump blasted Zaid for advocating a \u201ccoup\u201d against him. \u201cThese attacks on Mark Zaid\u2019s patriotism are baseless, irresponsible and dangerous,\u201d Laufman tweeted. \u201cMark is an ardent advocate for his clients.”<\/p>\n

After the CIA analyst was coached on how to file a complaint under Intelligence Community whistleblower protections, he was steered to another Obama holdover — former Justice Department attorney-turned-inspector general Michael Atkinson, who facilitated the processing of his complaint, despite numerous red flags raised by career Justice Department lawyers who reviewed it.<\/p>\n

The department’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled\u00a0that the complaint involved \u201cforeign diplomacy,\u201d not intelligence, contained \u201chearsay\u201d evidence based on \u201csecondhand\u201d information, and did not meet the definition of an \u201curgent concern\u201d that needed to be reported to Congress. Still, Atkinson worked closely with Schiff to pressure the White House to make the complaint public.<\/p>\n

Fleitz said cloaking the CIA analyst in the whistleblower statute provided him cover from public scrutiny. By making him anonymous, he was able to hide his background and motives. Filing the complaint with the IC inspector general, moreover, gave him added protections against reprisals, while letting him disclose classified information. If he had filed directly with Congress, it could not have made the complaint public due to concerns about disclosing classified information. But a complaint referred by the IG to Congress gave it more latitude over what it could make public.<\/p>\n

Omitted Contacts With Schiff<\/strong><\/p>\n

The whistleblower complaint was publicly released Sept. 26 after a barrage of letters and a subpoena from Schiff, along with a flood of leaks to the media.<\/p>\n

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Michael Atkinson: Was the intelligence community inspector general misled by the whistleblower? And was Atkinson “evasive” to congressional investigators?<\/div>\n
AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana<\/div>\n
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However, the whistleblower did not disclose to Atkinson that he had briefed Schiff\u2019s office about his complaint before filing it with the inspector general. He was required on forms to list any other agencies he had contacted, including Congress. But he omitted those contacts and other material facts from his disclosure. He also appears to have misled Atkinson on Aug. 12, when on a separate form he stated: \u201cI reserve the option to exercise my legal right to contact the committees directly,\u201d when he had already contacted Schiff\u2019s committee weeks prior to making the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whistleblower made statements to the inspector general under the penalty of perjury that were not true or correct,\u201d said Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee.<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe said Atkinson appeared unconcerned after the New York Times revealed in early October that Schiff\u2019s office had privately consulted with the CIA analyst before he filed his complaint, contradicting Schiff\u2019s initial denials. Ratcliffe told RealClearInvestigations that in closed door testimony on Oct. 4, \u201cI asked IG Atkinson about his \u2018investigation\u2019 into the contacts between Schiff\u2019s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower.”\u00a0 But he said Atkinson claimed that he had not investigated them because he had only just learned about them in the media.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 8, after more media reports revealed the whistleblower and Schiff\u2019s staff had concealed their contacts with each other, the whistleblower called Atkinson\u2019s office to try to explain why he made false statements in writing and verbally, transgressions that could be punishable with a fine of up to $10,000, imprisonment for up five years, or both, according to the federal form he signed under penalty of perjury.<\/p>\n

In his clarification to the inspector general, the whistleblower acknowledged for the first time reaching out to Schiff\u2019s staff before filing the complaint, according to an investigative report filed later that month by Atkinson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whistleblower got caught,\u201d Ratcliffe said. “The whistleblower made false statements. The whistleblower got caught with Chairman Schiff.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the truth about what happened is documented on pages 53-73 of the transcript of Atkinson\u2019s eight-hour testimony. Except that Schiff refuses to release it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe transcript is classified \u2018Secret\u2019 so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions,\u201d Ratcliffe told RCI.<\/p>\n

Atkinson replaced Charles McCullough as the intelligence community\u2019s IG. McCullough is now a partner in the same law firm for which Bakaj and Zaid work. McCullough formerly reported directly to Obama\u2019s National Intelligence Director, James Clapper, one of Trump\u2019s biggest critics in the intelligence community and a regular agitator for his impeachment on CNN.<\/p>\n

Hidden Political Agenda?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Atkinson also repeatedly refused to answer Senate Intelligence Committee questions about the political bias of the whistleblower. Republican members of the panel called his Sept. 26 testimony \u201cevasive.\u201d Senate investigators say they are seeking all records generated from Atkinson\u2019s \u201cpreliminary review\u201d of the whistleblower\u2019s complaint, including evidence and \u201cindicia\u201d of the whistleblower\u2019s \u201cpolitical bias\u201d in favor of Biden.<\/p>\n

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Mary McCord: The Justice Department official worked with inspector general Atkinson during the Trump-Russia probe and now works with Democrats on the impeachment case.<\/div>\n
AP Photo\/Susan Walsh, File<\/div>\n
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Republicans point out that Atkinson was the top national security lawyer in the Obama Justice Department when it was investigating Trump campaign aides and Trump himself in 2016 and 2017. He worked closely with Laufman, the department\u2019s former counterintelligence section chief who\u2019s now aligned with the whistleblower\u2019s attorneys. Also, Atkinson served as senior counsel to Mary McCord, the senior Justice official appointed by Obama who helped oversee the FBI\u2019s Russia \u201ccollusion\u201d probe, and who personally pressured the White House to fire then National Security Adviser Flynn. She and Atkinson worked together on the Russia case. Closing the circle tighter, McCord was Laufman\u2019s boss at Justice.<\/p>\n

As it happens, all three are now involved in the whistleblower case or the impeachment process.<\/p>\n

After leaving the department, McCord joined the stable of attorneys Democrats recruited last year to help impeach Trump. She is\u00a0listed<\/a>\u00a0as a top outside counsel for the House in key legal battles tied to impeachment, including trying to convince federal judges to unblock White House witnesses and documents.<\/p>\n

“Michael Atkinson is a key anti-Trump conspirator who played a central role in transforming the \u2018whistleblower’ complaint into the current impeachment proceedings,\u201d said Bill Marshall, a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, the conservative government watchdog group that is suing the Justice Department for Atkinson\u2019s internal communications regarding impeachment.<\/p>\n

Atkinson\u2019s office declined comment.<\/p>\n

Another ‘Co-Conspirator’?<\/strong><\/p>\n

During closed-door depositions taken in the impeachment inquiry, Ciaramella\u2019s confederate Misko was observed handing notes to Schiff\u2019s lead counsel for the impeachment inquiry, Daniel Goldman \u2013 another Obama Justice attorney and a major Democratic donor \u2013 as he asked questions of Trump administration witnesses, officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings told RealClearInvestigations. Misko also was observed sitting on the dais behind Democratic members during last month\u2019s publicly broadcast joint impeachment committee hearings.<\/p>\n

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Rep. Louie Gohmert: Publicly singled out Sean Misko and Abby Grace as Ciaramella’s “co-conspirators.”<\/div>\n
AP Photo\/Patrick Semansky, Pool<\/div>\n
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Another Schiff recruit believed to be part of the clandestine political operation against Trump is Abby Grace, who also worked closely with Ciaramella at the NSC, both before and after Trump was elected. During the Obama administration, Grace was an assistant to Obama national security aide Ben Rhodes.<\/p>\n

Last February, Schiff recruited this other White House friend of the whistleblower to work as an impeachment investigator. Grace is\u00a0listed<\/a>\u00a0alongside Sean Misko as senior staffers in the House Intelligence Committee\u2019s \u201cThe Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report\u201d published last month.<\/p>\n

Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, who served on one of the House impeachment panels, singled out Grace and Misko as Ciaramella\u2019s \u201cco-conspirators\u201d in a recent House floor speech arguing for their testimony.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people are at the heart of everything about this whole Ukrainian hoax,\u201d Gohmert said. \u201cWe need to be able to talk to these people.”<\/p>\n

A Schiff spokesman dismissed Gohmert\u2019s allegation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese allegations about our dedicated and professional staff members are patently false and are based off false smears from a congressional staffer with a personal vendetta from a previous job,\u201d said Patrick Boland, spokesman for the House Intelligence Committee. \u201cIt\u2019s shocking that members of Congress would repeat them and other false conspiracy theories, rather than focusing on the facts of the president\u2019s misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boland declined to identify “the congressional staffer with a personal vendetta.”<\/p>\n

Schiff has maintained in open hearings and interviews that he did not personally speak with the whistleblower and still does not even know his identity, which would mean the intelligence panel’s senior staff has withheld his name from their chairman for almost six months. Still, he insists that he knows that the CIA analyst has “acted in good faith,\u201d as well as \u201cappropriately and lawfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CIA declined comment. But the agency reportedly has taken security measures to protect the analyst, who has continued to work on issues relating to Russia and Ukraine and participate in interagency meetings.<\/p>\n

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\nhttps:\/\/www.realclearinvestigations.com\/articles\/2020\/01\/22\/whistleblower_was_overheard_in_17_discussing_with_ally_how_to_remove_trump_121701.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whistleblower Was Overheard in ’17 Discussing With Ally How to Remove Trump By\u00a0Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}