On Friday evening word began to circulate that another official may step forward to make a formal complaint about Donald Trump’s attempts to extort Ukraine and force that nation into interfering in a U.S. election. This “second whistleblower” is described as someone who was directly involved in the events surrounding Trump’s July 25th call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the weeks of negotiations that took place, both before and after that call. The focus of action by Trump, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and his State Department team in Europe was to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
A second whistleblower complaint could annihilate the primary defense Republicans have launched to distract from Trump’s actions. Since the first complaint highlighting Trump’s abuse became public, Trump has leaned heavily on the idea that the whistleblower was acting on “hearsay.” Republicans have joined in to claim that the whistleblower is partisan, and that somehow his contact with a House Intelligence Committee staffer—a step required by the intelligence community whistleblower procedures—means that the complaint is “a scam” launched in concert with House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff.
It doesn’t matter that the information relayed in the whistleblower complaint came directly from some of those involved in the incident, or that everything in that complaint has so far proven to be accurate. It doesn’t matter that the complaint has since been confirmed by everything revealed by the not-a-transcript of Trump’s call, and reinforced by the texts traded among Trump’s diplomatic corp. All that Republicans have to play at this point is personal attacks on the whistleblower and Schiff. So that’s where they’re going.
But a second whistleblower could render that defense doubly-moot. According to The New York Times, the source of the second complaint is also someone within the intelligence community—which would seem to leave out those ambassadors who were passing around notes concerning Trump’s efforts to shakedown Ukraine, even as they were describing the effort as “crazy.” However, this source is described not only someone with first-person knowledge of the events. In fact, the potential second whistleblower is someone who intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson went to in an attempt confirm the complaints made by the original whistleblower especially because this second potential whistleblower—WB2—had core knowledge of the events in the allegations.
At this point, a second whistleblower is completely unnecessary to sustain the key allegations against Trump. What he did, and how his team inside and outside Washington acted to both enable and cover-up those actions, is blindingly clear. But a second whistleblower could perform a real service in showing just how ridiculous the pitiful Republican defense of Trump’s actions has really become.
Atkinson was back in front of House committees on Friday in a closed door session to explain the process by which he received and evaluated the original whistleblower report. It’s not clear that he provided any information related to this second whistleblower.
But Atkinson may soon have reason for a third appearance — and some of those Republicans who have been biting their lips to remain silent, may soon find it even harder to support Trump.