President Obama, a constitutional-law scholar, weaponized the Espionage Act against whistleblowers like no administration before. While there are protected avenues for sharing concerns about government wrongdoing and abuse, seeking any outside channel for sharing secret information leaves a whistleblower vulnerable to being charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, which was written to prosecute spies against the United States during wartime. While this administration has acted in unprecedented ways, ignoring the norms set before them, the accusations of treason are merely a Trumpian escalation of President Barack Obama’s war on whistleblowers.
But Trump’s is not the first administration to interpret intelligence community whistleblowers in this way. The president and his defenders consistently conflate the definitions of whistleblowing and spying, clouding the difference between shedding light on wrongdoing and betraying the country. The original complaint has since been bolstered by a second whistleblower, represented by the same legal team, adding to the United States’ complex relationship with government whistleblowers. He escalated to demanding to know their identity, so they could be investigated-or dealt with the way spies used to be dealt with, as he said at a press conference at the United Nations.
Trump immediately called the whistleblower “ highly partisan” while questioning their intentions for coming forward.
#CRACKDOWN ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE MESS PRO#
House Democrats are moving quickly on the impeachment probe after a whistleblower exposed the president’s July phone call with the Ukrainian president.Īn intelligence community whistleblower’s complaint pushed House Democrats into an impeachment inquiry last month, after revealing an improper quid pro quo exchange between President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
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