President Trump on Friday blasted the anonymous whistleblower as “fake,” saying he believes the person whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry provided false information.
As he left an event at the White House celebrating several NCAA national championship teams, Trump was asked whether the whistleblower — reportedly a member of the intelligence community — should be fired.
“What whistleblower?” the president replied. “I don’t think there is. I consider it to be a fake whistleblower, because what he wrote didn’t correspond to what I said in any way, shape or form.”
The whistleblower provided a largely secondhand account of Trump’s July 25 phone call in which the president asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) initiated the impeachment inquiry in September after news reports revealed the content of the complaint and the president’s conversation with Zelensky.
Trump has previously called the whistleblower’s complaint about the call “a very inaccurate report.”
“My phone call was perfecto. It was totally appropriate,” he said this month.
Earlier Friday, Trump, in a wide-ranging interview on “Fox & Friends,” claimed to know the identity of the whistleblower and renewed calls for the person to testify before the House Intelligence Committee.
“The whistleblower is, in my opinion, a political operative,” Trump said.
“And by the way, you know who the whistleblower is, too. Otherwise, you’re not doing your job,” he told the hosts.
“You know the — everybody knows it. If the whistleblower were on the other side, they would have revealed the whistleblower two months ago.”