An aide to top Republican Congressman Devin Nunes is accused of working on a way to reveal the name of the whistleblower who sparked the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump.
Derek Harvey, an aide to Nunes, who is the senior Republican on the House intelligence committee, has given GOP lawmakers the whistleblower’s name ahead of witness depositions in the impeachment inquiry, the Daily Beast reported.
The purpose is to get the whistleblower’s name in the transcripts of the proceedings.
David Harvey, an aide to top Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, is accused of working on a way to reveal the name of the whistleblower who sparked impeachment probe
Rep. Devon Nunes is the top Republican on the Intelligence panel and a key Trump ally
Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff has pledged to release the transcripts of the interviews at a later date, meaning the whistleblower’s name would become public.
Nunes office did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
Republicans denied they were trying to reveal the whistleblower’s name during their turns as questioning witnesses in the inquiry.
‘Adam Schiff continues to talk about the whistleblower and, by the way, he’s the one who knows who he is. But that’s not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to get information we’re entitled to get,’ GOP Congressman Jim Jordan told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Asked if he wanted to know the whistleblower’s name, Jordan responded: ‘The American people want to know. I want to get to the truth.’
But Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the Republicans at Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman’s deposition where trying to get him to reveal the identity of the whistleblower.
Vindman, a National Security Council official overseeing Ukraine policy, said in his opening statement on Tuesday he does not know the whistleblower’s identity.
‘I am not the whistleblower who brought this issue to the CIA and the Committees’ attention. I do not know who the whistleblower is and I would not feel comfortable to speculate as to the identity of the whistleblower,’ he said.
But Wasserman Schultz blasted Republicans for their line of questioning.
‘What the Republicans are trying to do very clearly in their questioning is try to front door or back door Lt. Col. Vindman into revealing who the whistleblower is, even though in his testimony he says he doesn’t he didn’t know,’ Wasserman Schultz said.
‘They are trying to through the back door and through process of elimination by their questions, they are attempting to get him to reveal that, and they have been unsuccessful,’ she added.
Rep. Adam Schiff has pledged to make witness transcripts public at a later date
Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz accused Republicans of trying to reveal the whistleblower’s name
Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch agreed that seemed to be the case but said the efforts were averted.
‘I’m not sure what the intent was but the direction of some of their questions might have led to that,’ he said, ‘but again it was averted.’
And Jordan accused Schiff, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, of subverting their questions.
‘Our counsel was asking questions and Adam Schiff tells the witness not to answer our questions, which is extremely ridiculous and that’s why it should be in public,’ Jordan charged.
Republican lawmakers and staff have said the name of the person suspected to be the whistleblower in the closed-door hearings, The Washington Post reported earlier this week.
They have not accused said person of being the whistleblower but their questions were seen as an attempt ‘to unmask the whistleblower,’ whose identity is shielded under federal law, several officials told the newspaper.
Harvey, the Nunes staffer who worked on the National Security Council early in the Trump administration, was passing notes to Republicans when Fiona Hill, a former deputy National Security adviser to the president, was being questioned in the inquiry.
Harvey is a former U.S. Army officer who worked with retired General David Petraeus during the U.S. troop surge in Iraq.
President Trump has repeatedly pushed for the whistleblower to be unmasked.
‘Where’s the Whistleblower? Just read the Transcript, everything else is made up garbage by Shifty Schiff and the Never Trumpers!,’ he tweeted Tuesday morning.