President Donald Trump ridiculed CNN and other establishment media on Sunday for refusing to report on the identity of the “whistleblower” who first raised the alarm about the president’s phone call with Ukraine.
“You know who it is. You just don’t want to report it,” Trump said. “CNN knows who it is but you don’t want to report it. And you would be doing the public a service if you did.”
The president spoke to reporters as he returned to the White House on Sunday afternoon from a trip to New York City.
Trump said he had read reports unmasking the identity of the “whistleblower,” but did not know if it was true.
Real Clear Investigations identified the “whistleblower” as CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, a 33-year-old registered Democrat who worked for the White House in former President Barack Obama’s administration with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan.
“I don’t know if that’s true or not,” Trump said. “But what they said is he’s an Obama person, it was involved with Brennan, Susan Rice which means Obama, but he was like a big anti-Trump person.”
Lawyers for the “whistleblower” refused to confirm or deny the identity of their client, but warned the media that they would be responsible if he faced any public backlash.
“Such behavior is at the pinnacle of irresponsibility and is intentionally reckless,” they wrote in a statement.
Real Clear Investigations argued that the “whistleblower’s” identity was in the public interest, as he was involved with the effort to remove a sitting president from office.
Trump said that “whistleblower’s” report was inaccurate and suggested that it was politically motivated by his hatred of him.
“My phone call was perfecto,” Trump said. “It was totally appropriate.”
The president also took a shot at the “fake news” media on Twitter, accusing them of covering up embarrassing details of his identity for the Democrats.