The Democrats 'whistleblower' secrecy charade

Andrew McCarthy:

Congressional Democrats are obstructing the impeachment inquiry.

You heard that right. It has become rote for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and his fellow Democrats to chide the Trump administration for blocking testimony from White House staffers and the president’s private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Yet, those witnesses actually have confidentiality privileges that are well settled in federal law, shielding communications between the chief executive and his top advisers, and between attorney and client, from disclosure.

When a person asserts a privilege recognized by law, we don’t call that obstruction. We call it the law in action.

By contrast, Schiff is playing a lawless game with the so-called whistleblower: predicating the impeachment inquiry on this intelligence official’s complaint while blocking Republicans from questioning the official and other policy officials with whom he dealt. The suppression of relevant information obstructs the congressional investigation.

I have argued from the outset that the “whistleblower” is not actually a whistleblower in the strict legal sense because the statute governing the protection of such sources is inapposite. (That is, the statute covers disclosures relating to activities of the intelligence services, not the president’s conduct of foreign relations.) For present purposes, though, let’s assume I am wrong and that the “whistleblower” is covered.

If this were a legal case, there is not a court in America that would keep the whistleblower’s identity and the details of his role in the origins of the Democrats’ Ukraine investigation under wraps.

Contrary to what Democrats would have you believe, this is not an unusual situation. It comes up frequently in prosecutions. The principle is simple: There are many legal and policy limitations on the disclosure of information. If, however, the government decides to proceed with a prosecution that makes presumptively secret matters germane to the truth-seeking process, secrecy has to give way.
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Schiff is a poor lawyer as well as a consummate liar.  He has to know his position is BS to keep Republicans from exposing the bias of the leaker.