Lawyers for the whistleblower who brought the nation’s attention to President Donald Trump’s now-infamous July 25 phone call with Ukraine have refused to confirm or deny their client’s identity after RealClearInvestigations reported on Wednesday that the man behind the complaint may be CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella.
The Washington Examiner reports that the whistleblower’s legal team put out a statement Thursday saying that they “neither confirm nor deny the identity of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower” in light of the report.
“Our client is legally entitled to anonymity,” they added, according to Breitbart.
The lawyers went on to assert that “members of the media” play a key “role in protecting those who lawfully expose suspected government wrongdoing.”
Unraveling the evidence
Up until this week, very little was known about the whistleblower whose complaint has formed the basis of Democrats’ impeachment efforts against the president. Early on, The New York Times revealed that the whistleblower was a male CIA operative with connections to the White House, according to the Daily Wire, and later, it was uncovered that he had ties to a top Democrat 2020 candidate: former Vice President Joe Biden.
But now, RealClearInvestigations believes it has the whistleblower’s identity — and if the earlier reports were true, their guy fits the bill. According to the outlet, Ciaramella is a 33-year-old registered Democrat who worked for the CIA and specialized in Russia and Ukraine.
In addition, Breitbart reports, Ciaramella “was detailed over to the National Security Council in the summer of 2015, working under former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice.” But he left the National Security Council shortly after Trump’s inauguration “over concerns about negative leaks to the media and then returned to the CIA,” according to Breitbart.
“He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump,” a former National Security Council official told RealClearInvestigations of Ciaramella.
Questions remain
But not everyone is convinced that Ciaramella is the man behind the mask. Among the doubters: conservative radio star Rush Limbaugh.
“This guy’s a leaker. He’s not a whistleblower,” Limbaugh said Thursday, according to the Examiner.
Meanwhile, the whistleblower’s attorneys are still keeping their lips sealed, and have denounced any publication that seeks to expose their client.
“Such behavior is at the pinnacle of irresponsibility and is intentionally reckless,” the lawyers wrote in their statement Thursday. “Any physical harm the individual and/or their family suffers as a result of disclosure means that the individuals and publications reporting such names will be personally liable for that harm.”
The attornies did not, however, threaten legal action against RealClearInvestigations.
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