Unfortunately, for every minute of a Judge Napolitano that appears on Fox News to speak a kernel of truth to the brainwashed masses, they have an hour of Judge Jeanine Pirro to remind them that Trump is operating on a level that us mere mortals cannot possibly comprehend, that God and the Cosmic Forces Of The Universe have delivered Trump’s divine miracle to us to lead us from our misery, and that Trump’s balls taste like Pumpkin Spice.
Pretty clearly someone talked that into his/her phone and didn’t do an edit. “Necessary” should read “necessarily” and “to” before “reassurance” should read “the”.
I think RealClearInvestigations outed them, then Drudge linked to their outing, and then Don Jr. linked to that. These people (GOP) are willing to ruin the life of this person (or worse) not only to punish and discredit them, but also to deter other whistleblowers from coming forward in the future. But it seems to me the press has been, for the most part, surprisingly steadfast in their efforts to not out them.
Guap
3090
A million dollars says someone in the White House is pressuring Fox to say the name on air.
‘Facts’ are very damaging to the ‘president’.
It is all just a diversionary tactic that they have latched on to to keep the sheep from noticing that everything in the original whistleblower report has been corroborated by first-hand participants - and even more damaging revelations have been made beyond anything in the original report.
At this point it is hard to imagine that the whistleblower would be in any more danger than Sondland, Taylor, etc.
They get way more mileage out of calling for his name than they would by saying his name.
Not if they can get acknowledgement that the name is someone who worked for a Democrat. Then it’s just the Steele Dossier playbook all over - the whistleblower was a conspiracy, the “secret” meetings cooked up all sorts of fake evidence, and now everything being released is based on the original conspiracy and the evidence cooked up by Shifty Schiff and his globalist cabal.
So did I. Yes, some gains were made in the last 150 years, but at terrible cost. And has been mentioned before, one thing we have learned (well, those of us who didn’t already know better) is that we haven’t come as far as we’d previously thought.
Sharpe
3095
I think the Dems should not get distracted by a prolonged fight over keeping the whistleblower’s name secret. Legally, the whistleblower has already invoked the protections of the law against retaliation by the executive branch; the law does not actually protect the whistleblower’s name.
Yes, exposing the name will expose the whistleblower to potential attack by crazies but that’s just a sad reality of our F’ed up politics and can be guarded against IMO.
This whole “identify the whistleblower” thing is a distraction and an effort to use whataboutism and other rhetorical tricks to try to attack the process of impeachment. I feel like, just as with the public witness testimony we’re about to have, sunshine is the best disinfectant here. Let the whistleblower testify, publicly, let the GOP scream about their worthless procedural and character/bias attacks, and then proceed on the basis of the already strong evidence and testimony.
The core of the law on whistleblowers is to protect them from government retaliation, not from publicly being revealed, and I think public testimony on this is the way to go.
Due to my job, I’ve already discovered that there are tons of YouTube videos blaring the whistleblower’s name in the video title, posted by conservatives.
It’s not really a secret.
You had me, then you lost me. I think this is the wrong approach - they want the whistleblower as a target, the only target. Calling for the whistleblower to testify allows them to have an opponent and to then campaign hard against that person, raise doubts, and waft those doubts across the whole process. Railing against “the whistleblower” doesn’t sound nearly as good as railing against “Loopy Larry Wilson” or “Shady Steven Dyson” or whatever dumb nickname applies to the person’s actual name. Being a whistleblower is widely perceived as good, and the idea that there is a whistleblower implies something bad was happening. So, while they get something out of it (deterring future whistleblowers by getting a whole lot of people to repeat over and over that whistleblowing is bad), they get less than if they had the name.
Now, they actually do have the name, yet Trump isn’t saying it and they aren’t campaigning against the details of the person’s life. That’s because the Dems keep slamming them on the idea of outing the whistleblower and because the case being built is not actually going to rely on anything directly out of the complaint - it will get the real facts from primary sources and lay those bare. Having the whistleblower testify would be a disaster. Constantly harping on how the person should be protected and allowed to continue with their life and career both keeps some level of protection for future whistleblowers in place and is a convenient deflection to any attempt to bring up the whistleblower’s motivations or affiliations.
antlers
3098
Let’s remember that the name being bandied about has not been confirmed to be the whistleblower by anyone who actually knows, although there is a lot of circumstantial evidence. One of the reasons to not use the name is the possibility that the wrong person has been identified. If you were one of the people who were entitled to know the actual identity of the whistleblower, you wouldn’t want to confirm or deny any suggested identity.
Sharpe
3099
It all depends on how big the distraction factor gets I guess. I feel like the whistleblower is a target for crazy attacks no matter if they are made public or not.
I think the Dems are playing it smart. The best play here is to keep protecting the identity of the whistleblower while you call witness after witness in to corroborate the information the whistleblower gave you. Then, after collecting damning testimony from dozens of people, some of whom were considered Trump loyalists until 10 minutes ago (politically speaking), you bring forth the whistleblower and say “So, all of the things we’ve heard from all of these people, THIS is what you were concerned about when you contacted the committee, correct?” and all they have to say is “Yes, sir, that is correct.”
That neatly circumvents the GOP defense of attacking the whistleblower as someone with an axe to grind or the ringleader of some kind of conspiracy. The evidence isn’t in the testimony or accusations of the whistleblower, it’s in the dozens of hours of testimony of people directly involved in the Trump Administration’s handling of the situation. It’s no longer one guy/girl saying “This happened!”, it’s multiple people saying “This happened, and this, and this too, and none of it is OK.”
As far as impeachment goes, the whistleblower is irrelevant at this point (obviously I don’t want them to suffer as a result of whistleblowing). The “transcript”, which is what they blew the whistle on, is out there. As is testimony from other people, some of which, unlike the whistleblower, had direct knowledge of the call’s contents and other bad acts. The whistleblower adds literally nothing to the prosecution case at this point.
Why? What does this add to the argument? Why not just make the case on the merits and leave the whistleblower out of it?
I kind of agree, except that I think the raging desire to punish this person and to frighten other potential future whistleblowers is more or less driving these evil fucks as much as is the intent to use the topic of the outing as a distraction, etc. as you guys are all saying. Judging it as either one thing or another feels like binary thinking to me.
Yeah, you’re absolutely right.
Lantz
3105
Exactly.
If someone sees a bank being robbed and calls 911 and the police come and catch the bank robber, it’s all on video, and the bank robber confesses then who cares who called 911?
A bank robber, obviously, and/or someone affiliated with the robbers who views the 911 caller and future 911 callers as mortal enemies, existential threats and symbols of what’s wrong with the world. Edit: But I’m probably being unfair; I think your question is actually about why an investigating committee would value 911 caller testimony.
