Whistleblower Willing to Give Nunes Written Testimony: Lawyer
Chuck Ross
Politics, Americas
But the whistleblower will not be identifying him or herself.
The intelligence community whistleblower who filed a complaint against President Donald Trump is willing to answer questions from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee in writing, his lawyer said Sunday.
The attorney, Mark Zaid, said he reached out Saturday to GOP California Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, to offer to provide written answers under oath to Republicans.
The proposal would allow Republicans to circumvent the intelligence panel’s Democratic majority, led by California Rep. Adam Schiff, who has unilateral power to call witnesses as part of the impeachment inquiry of Trump.
Zaid said that the whistleblower, who is reported to be a CIA analyst, will not respond to questions about his identity.
WBer NEWS ALERT:
1/Our legal team offered GOP direct opportunity to ask written questions of #whistleblower.
Recent GOP messaging, led by President Trump (incl this morning), has been to highlight original #WBer & demand disclosure of identity.
— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) November 3, 2019
Trump and a handful of House Republicans have called for the whistleblower to be identified. Democrats and the whistleblower’s lawyers argue that the identity of the analyst is irrelevant given testimony given by other witnesses in the impeachment inquiry.
The whistleblower’s lawyers, Zaid and Andrew Bakaj, have floated vague legal threats to deter news outlets from identifying their client. They said in a statement on Oct. 31 that news outlets will be “personally liable” if the whistleblower is harmed if they are identified. Government whistleblowers are legally protected from being identified by their government agencies, but there are no laws prohibiting journalists from identifying whistleblowers.
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