Trump firing back as Democrats push impeachment inquiry
Doubles down on calls to identify whistleblower; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, slammed President Trump on Tuesday over his repeated calls to identify the whistleblower who filed the report about his phone call with the Ukrainian leader, suggesting the hostile rhetoric towards the anonymous intelligence community worker may be "bringing harm" towards the individual.
"The president at this point has been very abusive of the Whistleblower Protection Act and really is basically on the verge of not only revealing the identity or getting somebody else to reveal the identity of the whistleblower, but also bringing harm to that person," Castro said on CNN.
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"It’s getting quite scary, the president’s behavior and his words and what that could conjure up.”
Castro, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and brother of 2020 presidential candidate, Julián Castro, speculated whether someone from within the White House who knows the identity of the whistleblower would "leak" it, but expressed confidence in the protection Congress has given to the informant.
"If you look at the whistleblower's complaint and the transcript of that phone call, it's starting to become clear that there was an attempted coverup by the White House of a president abusing his power, betraying his oath of office," Castro continued.
"And this investigation -- every day it seems like there is a new, basically, a path to follow, a new trail to follow and we're going to do that."
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Earlier in the day, Castro's congressional colleague, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., insisted that Trump should be placed in "solitary confinement."
"I'm calling on the GOP to stop Trump's filthy talk of whistleblowers being spies & using mob language implying they should be killed," Waters tweeted. "Impeachment is not good enough for Trump. He needs to be imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement. But for now, impeachment is the imperative."
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