Trump attacks whistleblower’s sources and alludes to punishment for spies

President Donald Trump on Thursday morning told a crowd of staff from the US Mission to the United Nations that he wants to know who provided information to a whistleblower about his phone call with the president of Ukraine, saying that whoever did so was “close to a spy” and that “in the old days,” spies were dealt with differently.

Maggie HabermanThe New York Times
Published : 26 Sept 2019, 06:10 PM
Updated : 26 Sept 2019, 06:10 PM

The remark stunned people in the audience, according to a person briefed on what took place, who had notes of what the president said. Trump made the statement about several minutes into his remarks before the group of about 50 people at the event intended to honour the US Mission. At the outset, he condemned former Vice President Joe Biden’s role in Ukraine at a time when his son Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

Trump repeatedly referred to the whistleblower and condemned the news media reporting on the complaint as “crooked.” He then said the whistleblower never heard the call in question.

“I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information because that’s close to a spy,” Trump said. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

The complaint, which was made public Thursday morning, said that the whistleblower obtained information about the call from multiple US officials.

“Over the past four months, more than half a dozen US officials have informed me of various facts related to this effort,” the complaint stated.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) after a closed-door intelligence briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019. The intelligence officer who filed a whistleblower complaint about President Donald Trump’s interactions with the leader of Ukraine raised alarms not only about what the two men said in a phone call, but also about how the White House handled records of the conversation, according to two people briefed on the complaint. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times)

Some in the crowd laughed, the person briefed on what took place said. The event was closed to reporters, and during his remarks, the president called the news media “scum” in addition to labelling them as crooked.

Trump spoke as the director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was testifying before Congress that the president had never asked for the identity of the whistleblower, whose complaint was initially withheld from Congress by the Trump administration. The complaint described concerns that the president was using his phone call with the Ukrainian president in July for personal gain to fulfil a political vendetta.

The ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Knight Craft, was in the room.

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a Twitter post later in the day, Trump referred again to the whistleblower having “second hand information” and said it was “Another Witch Hunt!”

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