This column has been adapted from Sean Hannity's new book, "Live Free Or Die: America (and the World) on the Brink"
Trump’s call with Zelensky was routine; the president was asking lots of other world leaders to cooperate with Barr’s probe. In fact, America would never have even heard about this nonissue were it not for the infamous “whistle-blower.”
Eighteen days after the Trump- Zelensky call, an unnamed CIA officer filed a complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community, accusing Trump of abusing his power for political gain by pressuring Zelensky to investigate the Bidens and 2016 election meddling.
By September, Democrats and the media had swirled this trivial call into a full-blown “scandal,” adding even more allegations. Trump had pressured Zelensky to dig up “dirt” on a rival! Trump had threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless he got his demands! Trump was hiding the evidence! Quid pro quo! Extortion! Foreign interference! Impeach!
It was a classic example of the Deep State at work, another instance of the intel world getting back at Trump “six ways from Sunday.” It turns out the “whistle-blower” was never a real whistle-blower. His own complaint acknowledged he hadn’t been on the call—he had no direct knowledge of the conversation—and that everything he alleged was hearsay.
Conveniently, shortly after receiving this complaint, Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general who was later fired by Trump, secretly changed the guidance language on whistle-blower submission forms to eliminate the ban on hearsay information. Of course, Atkinson should not have been advancing this complaint in the first place, since it had nothing to do with intelligence and was therefore outside his jurisdiction.
It’s worth underscoring: the so-called whistle-blower was not a whistle-blower at all—he was a political saboteur, a partisan Trump hater, ground zero of the Democrats’ new Ukraine hoax. The inspector general had to acknowledge the non-whistle-blower had a “political bias” in favor of Trump’s Democratic rivals. Later reporting determined he was a registered Democrat who had worked in the Obama White House alongside then–vice president Joe Biden and then–CIA director John Brennan.
More from Opinion
He also hired as his attorney Mark Zaid, a prominent Trump-despising political operative who had been ranting about impeachment since Trump’s first days in office. Here’s a Zaid tweet from January 30, 2017, just ten days after Trump’s inauguration: “#coup has started. First of many steps. #rebellion. #impeachment will follow ultimately. #lawyers.” He kept it up, fantasizing for months about removing Trump from office.
It also turned out that this hearsay whistle-blower had plotted with Schiff from the start. In an obvious preemptive leak by Schiff’s team, the New York Times reported that “the CIA officer approached a House Intelligence aide” days before he filed his official complaint. This allowed Schiff a head start on his impeachment march.
The Schiff team even gave the fake whistle-blower advice on how to prepare the complaint and get a lawyer. Schiff would go on to lie about this, telling MSNBC on September 17, “We have not spoken directly with the whistle-blower.”
CLICK HERE FOR THE OPINION NEWSLETTER
All these damning facts explain why Schiff abandoned his demand that the whistle-blower testify to Congress. He knew Republicans would expose the political bias, the hearsay nature of the complaint, and the ties to Schiff ’s office. It would have early on exposed this as the latest Democratic scheme to bring down the president.
Not that Americans ever needed to hear the wild speculations of a partisan non-whistle-blower. Within days of the media mob latching on to the complaint, the Trump White House decided to set the record straight. On September 25, it released the full, unredacted transcript of the president’s call with Zelensky, allowing Americans to see for themselves the absurdity of the left’s claims.
The hyperpartisans on the left were so alarmed by this transparency that their first reaction was to deny the transcript’s authenticity— they argued it was only a “rough” or “reconstructed” version. And Schiff the next day felt compelled during a televised congressional hearing to “read” a purely fabricated, fictionalized version of the transcript, disingenuously saying it was the “essence of what the president communicates.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
This is what the biggest liar in Congress claimed the president said on the call: “We’ve been very good to your country, very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what? I don’t see much reciprocity here. I hear what you want. I have a favor that I want from you, though. And I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good: I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand?”
The actual transcript was so exonerating, Schiff had to make up an entirely different version to keep his narrative.
From LIVE FREE OR DIE by Sean Hannity. Copyright © 2020 by Sean Hannity. Reprinted by permission of Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Best of Opinion
Get the recap of top opinion commentary and original content throughout the week.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can opt-out at any time.