The whistleblower just called Donald Trump’s bluff
The original whistleblower complaint in Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal has since resulted in thirteen (and counting) of Trump’s own current and former people having come forward to testify against him in the House impeachment inquiry. This means the whistleblower has become irrelevant, as his or her claims have now been corroborated over and over again.
But that hasn’t stopped Donald Trump and his allies from making increasingly absurd claims about the whistleblower, in a last ditch attempt at creating controversy where none exists. Trump keeps tweeting that the whistleblower has vanished, or that the whistleblower was “picked” by Adam Schiff, or that the whistleblower is Adam Schiff. Some of the worst of Trump’s bottom-feeding surrogates have made up even more deranged things, all while claiming it’s somehow scandalous that the whistleblower is still in the shadows.
Now the whistleblower is officially calling Donald Trump’s bluff. Mark Zaid, a lawyer representing the whistleblower, tweeted today that the whistleblower is willing to answer written questions from Trump’s Republican allies on the House Intel Committee. This show of good faith on the part of the whistleblower will serve to back Trump and his allies into a corner.
If Donald Trump and his House GOP allies take the whistleblower up on his/her offer and agree to submit questions in writing, it’ll mean they can no longer make the case that the whistleblower is hiding from them. If they refuse to work with the whistleblower on this, then they can no longer make the case that they’re legitimately seeking information from the whistleblower. Either way, Trump loses.
