Media not obligated to keep whistleblower's name secret, as the federal government is, Brit Hume says

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Hume: Media under no obligation to withhold a whistleblower's name

Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume on Ukraine whistleblower allegedly being named in media reports.

The media is under no requirement to withhold the Trump-Ukraine phone call whistleblower's name, according to Brit Hume.

The whistleblower system is a governmental device that protects against internal retaliation, Hume said Wednesday on "The Story."

"It is an internal government system designed to protect people inside the government from being retaliated against for reporting wrongdoing by their superiors or by others in their agencies," he said.

"It is binding on people inside the government. It is presumably perhaps binding on Congress -- though I'm not quite sure about that. It is certainly not binding on the news media."

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Hume further said the media has no other obligation to hold back the name if reporters discover it. If the name of the whistleblower was discovered, Hume said he believes the media will indeed publish it.

To that end, host Martha MacCallum said the whistleblower's identity might shed light on any potential underlying motivations in the impeachment proceedings.

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Earlier in the interview, Hume responded to former CIA Director John Brennan, now a television news analyst, who recently claimed the presence of ellipses in President Trump's transcript is likely evidence of an intentional maneuver on the part of the White House to withhold segments of the text.

Hume largely dismissed Brennan's comments, claiming the former Obama administration official "compiled a long record of talking through his hat about Donald Trump" and has been shown to "plainly dislike" the president "intensely."