The lawyers representing the whistleblower at the heart of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry on Wednesday hit back at President Donald Trump and his allies’ attacks accusing the whistleblower of having a political bias.
Bakaj and Zaid said their client has “never worked for or advised a political candidate, campaign, or party” and has worked with elected officials (not candidates) on both sides of the aisle.
That’s why the Republicans were talking about “a connection to a Democratic presidential candidate.” S/He worked at the White House so likely interacted with people like Julian Castro or Joe Biden – who were elected officials, and happen to now be presidential candidates. The “connection” language is wholly misleading and not only not evidence of partisan bias, but clearly a smear – looking at you Axios.
“To date, virtually every substantive allegation has been confirmed by other sources,” Bakaj and Zaid wrote. “For that reason the identity of the whistleblower is irrelevant.”
This is literally all there is to it: once the WB’s report is corroborated from other sources, he/she isn’t even a testifying witness. Under those circumstances, their credibility can’t be impeached in a court of law and any discussion of them is irrelevant in subsequent proceedings.
This line of attack, then, serves only one purpose: to attempt to discredit the investigation with the public by assassinating the character of its originator(s.) This is what Donnie did with the Mueller investigation. Allowing any kind of replay of that misdirection would be folly.
We’re certainly in a new era, with calling for execution and outing of whistleblowers, claiming that nothing they say can be believed if they don’t have the “right” political registration…
I expect this in Turkey or russia. To see this here, and with a whole Party in near lock-step behind him…
Even when they do have the “right” political registration (Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Sessions, etc.) anything unfavorable they might have to say about Trump is proof of their political bias against him. Anyone who objects to his behavior is biased against him and thus has no credibility. Can you imagine if this were the standard for police? “That cop doesn’t like murderers and that’s the only reason he arrested me for murder.”
Actually, for that, there probably should be more standards. Given how often things like “he’s a proven racist and that’s why he keeps arresting black people” seems to come up as an issue…
This has consequences. I am at the end of my career but still work actively with the VA and DoD on health benefits issues. People throughout the government are keeping their heads down, trying to stay below the radar so they can do the people’s work that is being paid for by the people’s taxes. I admire the hell out of them and wish them fair winds and following seas until this monstrous evil man is gone. Fuck him for demonizing and dismantling government.
So trump is arguing that the next democratic president should have carte blanche to fire every regsitered republican and independent in the executive branch? For security reasons.
This has always been the rule in Trumpworld/GOPland: You’re only allowed to call the cops if you’re one of us. And if you’re one of us, you’ll never report any crimes. If you do, you’re not one of us, therefore what you did wasn’t allowed. Now let’s doxx you and bring on an avalanche of death threats from our unhinged supporters.
Yeah, I’m pretty well aware. His standard is simply that anyone who has anything remotely negative to say about his behavior is inherently biased against him. The evidence for that bias is that they objected to something he did, not because they object to the fact that he’s a white guy. Hell, most of the people he’s claiming are biased against him are fellow white guys.
There are high school kids losing in quarter finals of debate who are more competent than Giuliani and Sekulow. No offense to the kids who didn’t break out of prelims. They’re probably more competent as well.