Dem Rep. Raskin: ‘Whistleblower’ Doesn’t Have to Testify Because White House Corroborated Everything

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Live,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said the whistleblower would not need to testify.

According to Raskin, a contemporaneous memo created by the White House officials “corroborated everything that the whistleblower was saying.”

On the witnesses that have testified already, Raskin said, “At this point, the critical thing is that all of the testimony is lining up. All of it corroborates the initial statement.”

He continued, “There might be a few interpretive differences, but essentially everybody is telling us the same thing, which is the phone call was just the tip of the iceberg on July 25. What was underneath it was a very deliberate, premeditated strategy by the president of the United States to withhold $391 million in military and security assistance in order to shake down the Ukrainian government for the political favors he wanted, as well as for a number of other things that are starting to come out now.”

Jackson asked, “You may have seen the president again this morning is calling on the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed. I know there are some concerns with your colleagues in the Democratic side of the aisle about protecting that person’s identity, and perhaps it sounds like that may mean this whistleblower not testifying at all. Do you need to hear from this whistleblower, and do you think this person will testify or not?”

Raskin said, “First of all, the contemporaneous memo created by the White House officials corroborated everything that the whistleblower was saying. Everything that we’ve learned about the withholding of the military aid also confirms what the whistleblower said and all of the evidence we’ve heard from other witnesses.”

He added, “That’s not the role of a whistleblower. Generally, what we try to do is protect whistleblowers. They’re the ones who kind of blow the top off of a scheme, and then we have other witnesses come forward who are willing to state it on the record and are willing to be heard. So the fact that the president wants to expose the whistleblower is what the guilty parties always do. they try to go after the person who essentially reveals their plot to the rest of the world.”

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