Trump wants whistleblower’s identity, renews attacks on Schiff

President Trump on Monday said he wants to know the identity of the whistleblower whose complaint about his call with his Ukrainian counterpart sparked impeachment proceedings.

“We’re trying to find out about the whistleblower. We have a whistleblower that reports things that are incorrect. As you know, the statement I made to the president of Ukraine, a good man, a nice man, new, was perfect. It was perfect,” Trump said from the White House during the swearing-in of Eugene Scalia as the new labor secretary.

“But the whistleblower reported a totally different statement like the statement was not even made. I guess you could say statement with call, the call was perfect. I made a call.

“When the whistleblower reported it, he made it sound terrible,” he continued, before turning his attention to Rep. Adam Schiff, whom he suggested earlier Monday should be arrested for treason.

“And then you have Adam Schiff, who even worse made up my words, which I think is horrible. I’ve never even seen a thing like that. Adam Schiff, representative, congressman, made up what I said, he actually took words and made it up,” he said about Schiff’s statement during a House Intelligence Committee hearing last week.

Schiff, chair of the committee, gave what he called the “essence” of Trump’s call with President Volodymyr Zelenski, which the California Democrat later said was a parody in part.

“The reason is, when he saw my call to the president of Ukraine, it was so good that he couldn’t quote from it. There was nothing done wrong, it was perfect. Adam Schiff made up the phony call, and he read it to Congress, and he read it to the people of the United States. And it’s a disgrace. This whole thing is a disgrace,” he said, referring to the House’s impeachment proceedings.

The commander in chief then contended that he asked Zelensky to investigate former veep Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden to root out corruption.

“There’s been tremendous corruption and we’re seeking it, it’s called drain the swamp. There’s been corruption on the other side. There’s been corruption like you’ve never seen,” he said.

“The new president of Ukraine ran on the basis of no corruption. That’s how he got elected. I believe that he really means it. There was a lot of corruption having to do with the 2016 election against us, and we want to get to the bottom of it, and it’s very important that we do,” Trump concluded.

Andrew Bakaj, the lawyer for the still unidentified whistleblower, said that outing the individual would be a federal offense.

“The Intel Community Whistleblower is entitled to anonymity. Law and policy support this and the individual is not to be retaliated against. Doing so is a violation of federal law,” he wrote on Twitter.

The president’s statements echoed those he made earlier Monday and during the weekend on Twitter.