Trump's son tweets name of alleged whistleblower

[HomerJS]

Immediately arrest this asshole. Does anyone named Trump respect the law?? If the information is correct the WB should sue his ass off.

Impeachment: Trump's son tweets name of alleged whistleblower

President Donald Trump's son published on Wednesday the name of the alleged anonymous whistleblower whose complaint fired the impeachment inquiry against Trump, breaking strict conventions for protecting officials who reveal wrongdoing in government. Amid calls by the president himself to expose

www.yahoo.com

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Immediately arrest this asshole. Does anyone named Trump respect the law?? If the information is correct the WB should sue his ass off.

Impeachment: Trump's son tweets name of alleged whistleblower

President Donald Trump's son published on Wednesday the name of the alleged anonymous whistleblower whose complaint fired the impeachment inquiry against Trump, breaking strict conventions for protecting officials who reveal wrongdoing in government. Amid calls by the president himself to expose

www.yahoo.com

While he wasn't the source, he's still an irresponsible little shit, and should probably be sued. Given his position in the WH and world stage it might be indictable (though probably not).

 

[Puffnstuff]

Doesn't that constitute slander?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Hey I’m no expert but didn’t something similar happen with Bush and isn’t there some kind of penalty to leaking a security cleared persons name?

I’m not sure if that applies to regular citizens.

 

[fskimospy]

Doesn't that constitute slander?

Depends on if it's true or not. If it's true then no.

What it represents regardless is a thuggish attempt to intimidate this whistleblower and future ones from speaking out against abuses of power by putting their personal safety at risk. Absolutely horrible.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Hey I’m no expert but didn’t something similar happen with Bush and isn’t there some kind of penalty to leaking a security cleared persons name?

I’m not sure if that applies to regular citizens.

It's very likely that the names themselves (along with associated information) are classified. Even if classified information is public, govt workers are still beholden to treat them as classified. At minimum he could be charged with mishandling classified information (irony).

 

[fskimospy]

Hey I’m no expert but didn’t something similar happen with Bush and isn’t there some kind of penalty to leaking a security cleared persons name?

I’m not sure if that applies to regular citizens.

If you're thinking about Valerie Plame the crime there was revealing classified information (her identity). The fact that this person is a whistleblower is not classified information, it's just something that officials are barred by other federal laws from revealing. So Trump Jr. isn't committing a crime here, although almost certainly some other federal official violated the law so it could get to him. (assuming it's accurate)

We should focus on how they are acting like an organized crime family though.

 

[Dulanic]

Should anyone expect any less?

 

[compuwiz1]

That name has been floating around news sites for the last couple weeks, just not the left leaning ones. This is not news. Also, if true, it will be demonstrated that the guy is connected in various ways to the democrats and has politically motivated reasons for blowing the whistle. Since he wasn't first party witness to the Trump Ukraine call, he isn't really a whistle blower, in the classic or protected sense. He needs to be subpoenaed to testify under oath. There is no law, that I know of, that says his name can't be known.

 

[soundforbjt]

That name has been floating around news sites for the last couple weeks, just not the left leaning ones. This is not news. Also, if true, it will be demonstrated that the guy is connected in various ways to the democrats and has politically motivated reasons for blowing the whistle. Since he wasn't first party witness to the Trump Ukraine call, he isn't really a whistle blower, in the classic or protected sense. He needs to be subpoenaed to testify under oath. There is no law, that I know of, that says his name can't be known.

Why should he have to testify? Everything he stated has been backed up by testimony from other witnesses who were in the administration and working for Trump. Are they all Dems as well? Does it even matter IF they are? A crime is a crime no matter who reports it. Can I ask a cop if he's a repub or dem and refuse to be arrested if he's not from my party?

 

[purbeast0]

Should anyone expect any less?

Nope.

Trumps gonna Trump.

 

[interchange]

I was personally surprised that Trump didn't tweet out the supposed whistleblower identity. I'm sure he was very heavily advised not to. This is an interesting way, though, to sidestep that prohibition. Not that I have any evidence Donald directed Junior to do this.

I don't know what the legal liability is for doing this. I would imagine there could be consequence based on public knowledge that the whistleblower is in danger.

 

[Indus]

LOCK HIM UP!

 

[cytg111]

That name has been floating around news sites for the last couple weeks, just not the left leaning ones. This is not news. Also, if true, it will be demonstrated that the guy is connected in various ways to the democrats and has politically motivated reasons for blowing the whistle. Since he wasn't first party witness to the Trump Ukraine call, he isn't really a whistle blower, in the classic or protected sense. He needs to be subpoenaed to testify under oath. There is no law, that I know of, that says his name can't be known.

What?
And...What?
Let me get this straight; you argue that he cant be the whistleblower cause...he cant whistle?Trumpian defensedeflector shields are getting weirder by the minute...

 

[MomentsofSanity]

That name has been floating around news sites for the last couple weeks, just not the left leaning ones. This is not news. Also, if true, it will be demonstrated that the guy is connected in various ways to the democrats and has politically motivated reasons for blowing the whistle. Since he wasn't first party witness to the Trump Ukraine call, he isn't really a whistle blower, in the classic or protected sense. He needs to be subpoenaed to testify under oath. There is no law, that I know of, that says his name can't be known.

Why does he need to testify? The people involved have testified (those that didn't ignore their subpoenas) and have corroborated everything. There's literally no need for the whistleblower to testify. None.

 

[woolfe9998]

Just read Jr's twitter feed. Point of clarification: this name had already been leaked by several conservative "news" sites. Jr. was linking one such article.

 

[VRAMdemon]

A story on NPR today stated that it's not illegal to out a whistleblower. The WB protection laws protect against retaliation, but don't guarantee anonymity.

Exposing the wb could be an impeachable offense, and be cause for civil litigation...just not criminal.

So it sounds inevitable that the wb will be outed sooner or later.

Hearing that Junior outed the whistleblower, and that the White House is desperately trying to save his ass. Or, really, its ass, as it claims it had no foreknowledge that he was going to do this, and Jr. is whining "what? You expect me to read every link I share?"

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

A story on NPR today stated that it's not illegal to out a whistleblower. The WB protection laws protect against retaliation, but don't guarantee anonymity.

Could it be considered criminal negligence or recklessness if you knowingly and willingly put someone in harm's way? That might be hard to prove of course.

 

[interchange]

That name has been floating around news sites for the last couple weeks, just not the left leaning ones. This is not news. Also, if true, it will be demonstrated that the guy is connected in various ways to the democrats and has politically motivated reasons for blowing the whistle. Since he wasn't first party witness to the Trump Ukraine call, he isn't really a whistle blower, in the classic or protected sense. He needs to be subpoenaed to testify under oath. There is no law, that I know of, that says his name can't be known.

The whistleblower indicated both first and second hand knowledge. First hand knowledge is not actually required at all but erroneously reported on as the older form to submit a complaint incorrectly indicated it was required. Regardless, the whistleblower had first-hand knowledge anyway, but we're not sure of which parts of his complaint. It isn't necessary that he was a witness to the call. What matters is that the complaint was deemed urgent and credible by the IG, and thus far I'm not aware of anything it included which has not been corroborated. It doesn't actually matter at this point if it has even significant inaccuracies or bias. The safeguard in bringing this to Congress is the IG. After he rendered his opinion, Congress has authority to investigate whatever they feel is worth investigating and will use the products of that investigation (documents and testimony) to pursue any action against Trump, not the whistleblower report.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

Could it be considered criminal negligence or recklessness if you knowingly and willingly put someone in harm's way? That might be hard to prove of course.

The law also stipulates you can’t intimidate. Threatening to out them when they are under several death threats could be deemed intimidation but it would never be prosecuted or convicted.

The purpose here does seem to be to deter anyone else from even thinking about coming forward though doesn't it?

 

[Puffnstuff]

Depends on if it's true or not. If it's true then no.

What it represents regardless is a thuggish attempt to intimidate this whistleblower and future ones from speaking out against abuses of power by putting their personal safety at risk. Absolutely horrible.

Probably more along the lines of disparaging remarks which can also land you in court.

 

[interchange]

Could it be considered criminal negligence or recklessness if you knowingly and willingly put someone in harm's way? That might be hard to prove of course.

By no means am I a legal expert, but if you could establish that you knowingly put a person in harm's way, you can be criminally liable for the harm that comes to them. Is there criminal liability if no harm comes? I don't know. In this case, proving Junior knew that his action would put the whistleblower at risk might not be too hard -- likely someone recalls a conversation about it or advised about the risk somehow, but proving that Junior's action was the proximate cause for the harm would be harder unless, perhaps, a person who takes action testifies that it was Junior's tweet which precipitated the action. Seems a high bar if that's what's required.

 

[theeedude]

Dumb move. Now if something happens to the guy, it's linked directly to the Trumps.

 

[fskimospy]

That name has been floating around news sites for the last couple weeks, just not the left leaning ones. This is not news. Also, if true, it will be demonstrated that the guy is connected in various ways to the democrats and has politically motivated reasons for blowing the whistle.

It's irrelevant as to if he was politically motivated or not as what he blew the whistle about has already been confirmed as true.

Since he wasn't first party witness to the Trump Ukraine call, he isn't really a whistle blower, in the classic or protected sense. He needs to be subpoenaed to testify under oath. There is no law, that I know of, that says his name can't be known.

This is false on multiple levels. First, there is no requirement to be a first party witness to misconduct to be a whistleblower. Second, the law very clearly says it is illegal for officials to publish his or her name. There is no legal or rational reason to have this person testify under oath as none of the information they provided is being used by the Democrats to base articles of impeachment on to the best of my knowledge. After all, everything in the complaint has been substantiated by other public witnesses.

If the law is working correctly no one should EVER know this person's name. Ever. Even after they are dead.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

By no means am I a legal expert, but if you could establish that you knowingly put a person in harm's way, you can be criminally liable for the harm that comes to them. Is there criminal liability if no harm comes? I don't know. In this case, proving Junior knew that his action would put the whistleblower at risk might not be too hard -- likely someone recalls a conversation about it or advised about the risk somehow, but proving that Junior's action was the proximate cause for the harm would be harder unless, perhaps, a person who takes action testifies that it was Junior's tweet which precipitated the action. Seems a high bar if that's what's required.

A side wrinkle is that if the individual named is NOT the whistleblower, you might still be putting that person in harm's way. Basically like swatting/doxxing someone.