The website 4Chan is mostly known for playing host to misogyny, racism, violent rhetoric, and members who put together misogyny, racism, and rhetoric to go out and launch mass shootings. As might be expected, it’s also a hotbed of Trump support. The members there are currently engaged in a fresh kind of race—the hunt to uncover the name of the whistleblower who filed the complaint about Donald Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president. And even those members are ridiculous, considering that this site has hosted the diatribes of previous mass shooters, as well as boards urging ever greater “kill counts,” the hunt is no laughing matter.
Now these mass murder fans believe it’s their time to stand up for history because “your president has asked for your help.” And their efforts are being driven to a fever pitch by a reported “reward” of $50,000 offered by pro-Trump activists behind previous smear campaigns.
Despite some big assistance from The New York Times, it doesn’t seem that the mob has yet come to agreement on a target for their rage. But, as The Washington Post reports, that hasn’t stopped them from jumping to openly racist conclusions based on bone-headed idiocy. In the complaint, the whistleblower identifies them self as “a non-White House official.” Out of this, several 4Chan”hunters” seem to have skimmed only the words “non-White” and immediately began declaring that “the whistleblower is not white.” This set off a frenzied review of people of color who have been stationed at the White House over the last two years.
The pro-Trump forces have guessed that the whistleblower is “Hispanic or Jewish or Arab or African American and, many were sure, a woman.” Some pointed at former deputy DNI Sue Gordon. Others at current CIA Director Gina Haspel or former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. That none of these names make sense, based on the timing and nature of the complaint, doesn’t matter.
The hunt has been spurred on by conservative commentators and by Trump’s own words. His claims that the whistleblower were “something like a spy” and suggestion that spies should be killed, have been taken very seriously by people who are at this moment posting picture of federal employees, outing their home addresses, and suggesting that this one could be “the one.”
The combination of Trump, his conspiracy-loving followers, and language coming from both ends of pipe that is increasing suggests that not only is the whistleblower in danger, so are many others.
It wouldn’t take the discovery of the whistleblower’s identity to spur violence from the attention-hungry denizens of 4chan. It would only take the “discovery.” Anyone might in a post long enough for a group or an individual to be convinced that the evidence points their way. Anyone so identified is at immediate risk, and so is everyone around them.
A conservative writer, Stu Cvrk, tweeted out the name of a State Department official soon after the New York Times piece went up. Cvrk claimed to have sources. Apparently those sources didn’t tell him the official retired two years before the complaint was fired. However, the man Cvrk named is currently an analyst for NBC News where he has made comments that were far from resoundingly pro-Trump. Which makes it seems as if Cvrk’s “mistake” was more “deliberately aiming at a perceived opponent.” That seems even more clear after Cvrk continued to stick by his pick even after it was pointed out as impossible.
There’s no doubt that the whistleblower “hunt” going on the pro-Trump internet represents a threat to the whistleblower, to anyone who comes under even momentary suspicion of being the whistleblower, and everyone around them. It’s also a massive threat to the whistleblower law, especially after the actions of Trump and the Times have made it clear that protections that are supposed to be afforded by the Whistleblower Protection Act are paper thin.