Top Republicans on Thursday pushed to identify the White House officials who told a whistleblower of alleged misconduct by the Trump administration, as Democrats ramped up their impeachment inquiry -- and several apparent inconsistencies emerged in the whistleblower's complaint.
Republicans specifically questioned why the whistleblower's sources in the White House didn't file a complaint themselves -- especially given that relevant whistleblower procedures do not protect second-hand complaints. (The New York Times reported that the whistleblower is a CIA officer detailed to the White House. Fox News has not confirmed The Times' report.)
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News' "Shepard Smith Reporting" on Thursday that the administration had an apparent "leak problem," adding, "if they're leaking something that's supposed to be classified, then ... that probably is criminal in nature."
"Let's find out," Biggs said when Smith asked if he wanted to see the whistleblower's sources.
The whistleblower's complaint, released earlier in the day, contained no firsthand accounts of wrongdoing. It cited information from White House officials who alleged there'd been efforts to hide Trump's July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among other conversations. The Trump administration reportedly began placing transcripts of Trump's calls with several foreign leaders in a highly classified repository after leakers publicly divulged the contents of Trump's private calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia in 2017.
The complaint stated that Trump made a “specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike" -- a request that does not appear in the declassified transcript of the call released by the Trump administration on Tuesday. Trump mentioned CrowdStrike, but did not demand the server.
And according to the whistleblower complaint, by mid-May, U.S. diplomat Kurt Volker sought to "contain the damage" from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani's outreach to Ukraine.
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Republicans want whistleblower's sources, as inconsistencies in complaint emerge
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