‘At the time, COMPLAINANT did not even know what the ICIG was…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The anonymous Ukraine whistleblower, who has been identified by several outlets as CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, claims he did not disclose on his official complaint form that he had met with House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff’s office because nothing of “substance” was discussed.
Before he filed his Aug. 12 complaint against President Donald Trump, the whistleblower reportedly met with one of Schiff’s aides.
On Tuesday, Breitbart reported that Ciaramella maintained a “bro-like” relationship with one of Schiff’s staffers, Sean Misko, who was hired in August, just as the whistleblower complaint surfaced.
Several other partisan connections have also helped support charges from Trump supporters that the complaint surrounding a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was part of an coordinated effort to engineer an impeachment scandal.
Though the whistleblower informed Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson that he had communicated with the House Intelligence Committee, he did not tell Atkinson that he had specifically talked to Schiff’s office beforehand.
The whistleblower now claims that he withheld this information because it wasn’t relevant or pertinent. But according to a memo of the whistleblower’s meeting with Schiff’s office, one of Schiff’s aides advised the whistleblower on how he should file the complaint against Trump.
“‘Do it right, hire a lawyer, and contact the ICIG,’” the aide told the whistleblower, according to the memo obtained by the Washington Examiner. “So that is what the COMPLAINANT did. At the time, COMPLAINANT did not even know what the ICIG was.”
The whistleblower claims that this conversation was “based on getting guidance on a procedural question, and that not substance of the actual disclosures was discussed,” the memo states.
Schiff’s office was heavily involved in the whistleblower’s compliant, according to multiple reports. Schiff even “learned about the outlines” of the complaint before the whistleblower submitted it to Atkinson, according to Schiff’s spokesman Patrick Boland.
Still, Schiff continues to claim that he does not know the identity of the whistleblower.
“I do not know the identity of the whistleblower, and I’m determined to make sure that identity is protected,” Schiff said during last week’s impeachment proceedings.
Senate Republicans plan to subpoena the Ciaramella if impeachment moves to the Senate Judiciary Committee, despite the fact that officials have not confirmed that Ciaramella is the whistleblower.
“You need to know the person who started the complaint. Without this, there would be no, there’d be no case,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the Examiner.
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