Note: this article, featuring our Legal Director Tom Devine, was originally published here.

The Whistleblower on the Trump/Ukraine Call is (or Should Be) Your Hero

The president of the United States has called an intelligence officer performing his (or her) sworn duty “a spy,” when that person – anonymous for now but probably not for long – is a hero.

And yet the president and his minions in Congress have done nothing but attack the whistleblower.

We have laws meant to protect such individuals. There have been some versions of those laws going all the way back to the 1700s.

Whistleblower took the harder route

The whistleblower in this case said that he (or she) learned from officials with firsthand knowledge that there were some potentially criminal aspects of a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, particularly the part where Trump tries to strongarm the Ukrainian president into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden.

The whistleblower did NOT hand over this information to one of my brothers and sisters in the media.

That would have been the easier route.

But it would have meant breaking the rules.

Instead, the whistleblower took the information to Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

The inspector general decided that the complaint was credible.

Trump calls him (or her) a spy

Rep. Jackie Speier, a member of the House Intelligence Committee investigating the issue, told ABC News, “He (Atkinson) spent two weeks investigating the complaint and found it credible. We want to hear all of the evidence he was able to unearth.”

Why wouldn’t we ALL want such a thing?

Instead, we have a president who says, “This country has to find out who this person (the whistleblower) was, because that person’s a spy, in my opinion.”

By saying such a thing, Trump is putting a target on the back of a patriot.

And while whistleblower laws are meant to protect the identity of those who wish to remain anonymous, it appears the pressure being applied by Trump and Republicans in Congress eventually will force him (or her) to be identified.

The attorney for the whistleblower has offered to answer any questions Congress may have in writing. Not that such a thing is necessary since other witnesses, particularly those with direct knowledge of the president’s conversation with the Ukrainian president, have been interviewed.

Is it a ‘death wish’ or patriotism?

Trump and his apologists want to attack the whistleblower in an effort to divert attention from the issue of extortion, and are demanding the whistleblower offer testimony in person. Odd, since Trump refused to be interviewed by the special counsel during the Russia investigation and only agreed to written responses to questions.

The whistleblower had to know that coming forward would be a huge risk, but he (or she) did so anyway.

Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, said, “Too often, you have to have a death wish to go through ‘established channels’ in national se­curity.”

It’s not a “death wish.”

It’s patriotism.