A former inspector general who fast-tracked a “whistleblower” complaint that led to the first impeachment of President Trump in 2019 knew the whistleblower was a registered Democrat and Joe Biden loyalist yet still determined his complaint was "a matter of urgent concern that appeared credible," according to newly declassified documents.
The documents also reveal the anonymous whistleblower secretly met with the Democratic staff of former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff prior to submitting his complaint in August 2019.
Yet under direct questioning, the whistleblower – later identified by RealClearInvestigations as intelligence analyst Eric Ciaramella – failed to disclose those contacts in interviews with IG investigators or on whistleblower forms, according to more than 350 pages of intel briefings Schiff classified as secret and locked up in a Capitol vault.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford released the papers this morning after National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard declassified them late last week. Justice Department insiders say the documents factor into an ongoing grand jury investigation into an alleged “grand conspiracy” by former Obama and Biden officials to illegally target Trump in political espionage activities.
Nonetheless, IG Michael Atkinson, then the intelligence community's top watchdog, did not question the whistleblower's political motivations, truthfulness or credibility.
Atkinson conducted no investigation of his interactions with Schiff staffers to see if political bias played a role in the preparation of his complaint, which alleged that Trump "had clearly committed a criminal act" in a 30-minute phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During that call, which was reported listened to by dozens of people, Trump told Zelenskyy “I would like you to do us a favor,” and help investigate Biden's son's role in the Burisma scandal. It was later alleged that Trump held up Ukraine funding to force that assistance, which never came. The whistleblower was not in the White House at the time to witness the phone call and relied instead on the account of former White House colleague and political ally Alexander Vindman, who is now seeking a U.S. Senate seat in Florida as a Democrat.
Second-Hand Hearsay
An Obama holdover, Atkinson formally notified Schiff of the complaint in September 2019, paving the way for its release to the public.
By allowing a second-hand hearsay complaint to be processed, Atkinson bent the longstanding rules of his office, according to the declassified briefings.
He also transmitted the information to Schiff over the objections of then-acting National Intelligence Director Joseph Maguire, who had a legal opinion from the DOJ which overruled Atkinson’s determination that the complaint was credible and urgent enough to warrant disclosure to Congress.
"The complainant's allegations appear credible to me," Atkinson insisted in a Sept. 19, 2019, briefing before Schiff's committee.
Atkinson called then-FBI Director Christopher Wray's chief of staff and briefed him on the complaint before filing a criminal referral with the bureau to investigate the allegations.
Atkinson also testified about the whistleblower and his complaint during a classified session held on Oct. 4, 2019, during which he stated, "The complainant was not politically biased in any way."
The two committee briefings spanned more than 10 hours and were conducted behind closed doors in a secure underground facility in the Capitol. The contents of those classified sessions have long been the source of mystery.
Atkinson refused to disclose the identity of the whistleblower "even now in a classified setting," because he said he felt compelled to "honor" his "request for confidentiality" – even though the IG has the authority to disclose such information in the course of an investigation.
At the same time, however, Atkinson revealed that the whistleblower disclosed under questioning by his team of three investigators that he was "a registered member of the Democratic Party [and] had a prior professional relationship with one of the Democratic presidential candidates for the 2020 election."
Ciaramella is listed in voting records as a registered Democrat. He worked directly with Vice President Biden on national security issues involving Ukraine and Russia. Ciaramella was even involved in internal Obama White House discussions over Burisma and Hunter Biden, as RCI also first reported.
These facts did not raise flags with Atkinson.
"There is no indication of any misconduct by the complainant related to this disclosure," Atkinson briefed the committee, adding that "the complainant has played by the rules."
He noted, however, that getting the intelligence committees to investigate the Trump allegations "is what the whistleblower intends [to do]."
Atkinson did not respond to requests for comment. His bio at the Washington law firm of Crowell & Moring LLP, where he is a partner, states, "Michael has been publicly described as "one you 'trust with investigations.' " Federal election records show his wife, also a D.C. attorney, is a regular Democrat donor who gave at least $900 to Joe Biden in 2020.
CIA Detailee
Ciaramella handled the controversial Ukraine portfolio for Biden as an intelligence analyst detailed to the White House from the CIA. As RCI has reported, Obama CIA Director John Brennan was a key player in advancing the Russiagate conspiracy theory that claimed the Trump campaign had coordinated with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election. Ciaramella remained in the White House during the first several months of the Trump administration, where he worked closely with a national security analyst, Sean Misko, who went on to become a key impeachment staffer for Schiff.
Atkinson previously worked as senior counsel to Obama appointee Mary McCord in the national security division of the Justice Department. A Democrat, McCord was involved in the ouster of Trump’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn, also based on snippets of a phone conversation he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The DOJ recently awarded Flynn $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit claiming he was the target of a political prosecution. McCord later worked as a legal consultant to Democrats in both impeachments of Trump.
Atkinson also worked closely with former DOJ official David Laufman, another Obama appointee and donor who approved the FBI's opening of investigations targeting five Trump advisers as possible foreign agents.
Schiff – who now represents California in the U.S. Senate – sealed the transcripts of Atkinson's testimony from public view during the impeachment proceedings. They are the only impeachment witness transcripts out of 18 that were never released.
Schiff classified the documents “Secret,” preventing Republicans who attended the Atkinson briefings from quoting from them. Even impeachment investigators were prevented from viewing it outside a highly secured room, known as a “SCIF," in the basement of the Capitol. Members had to first get permission from Schiff, and were forbidden from bringing phones into the SCIF or from taking notes from the document.
Then-House Intelligence member John Ratcliffe, now CIA director, said Schiff's office coached the whistleblower on how to file a complaint under intelligence community whistleblower protections before steering him to Atkinson, who facilitated the processing of his complaint, despite numerous alarms sounded by career Justice Department lawyers who reviewed it.
The department's Office of Legal Counsel ruled that the complaint involved “foreign diplomacy,” not intelligence, contained “hearsay” evidence based on “secondhand” information, and did not meet the definition of an “urgent concern” that needed to be reported to Congress. Still, Atkinson worked closely with Schiff to pressure the White House to make the complaint public.
Former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz said cloaking the Biden CIA detailee in the whistleblower statute provided him cover from public scrutiny. By making Ciaramella anonymous, he was able to hide his background and motives.
Disclosing Classified Information
Filing the complaint with the IC inspector general, moreover, gave him added protections against reprisals, while letting him disclose classified information. If he had filed directly with Congress, it could not have made the complaint public due to concerns about disclosing classified information. But a complaint referred by the IG to Congress gave it more latitude over what it could make public.
The whistleblower complaint was publicly released Sept. 26, 2019, after a barrage of letters and a subpoena from Schiff, along with a flood of leaks to the media.
However, the whistleblower never disclosed to Atkinson that he had briefed Schiff’s office about his complaint before filing it with the inspector general. He was required on forms to list any other agencies he had contacted – including specifically, "the congressional intelligence committees." But he omitted those contacts and other material facts from his disclosure.
"The whistleblower did not check the box for congressional intelligence committees," Atkinson told the committee in his Oct. 4, 2019, sworn testimony. "Our investigators also asked the complainant who knew about the complainant's disclosure. The complainant did not identify the congressional intelligence committees."
He also appears to have misled Atkinson on Aug. 12, 2019, when on a separate form he stated: “I reserve the option to exercise my legal right to contact the committees directly,” when he had already contacted Schiff’s committee weeks prior to making the statement.
“The whistleblower made statements to the inspector general under the penalty of perjury that were not true or correct,” Ratcliffe said.
Schiff also kept mum about their scheme.
Ratcliffe said Atkinson appeared unconcerned after the New York Times revealed in early October 2019 that Schiff’s office had privately consulted with the CIA analyst before he filed his complaint, contradicting Schiff’s initial denials they had ever met.
According to the declassified transcripts, Schiff maintained that he merely "misspoke" and wasn't trying to hide anything. "Please do not suggest by that that I, or anyone else, had an intention to deceive," he said.
Ratcliffe told RealClearInvestigations that in closed-door testimony on Oct. 4 “I asked IG Atkinson about his ‘investigation’ into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower." But he said Atkinson claimed that he had not investigated them because he had only just learned about them in the media.
On Oct. 8, after more media reports revealed the whistleblower and Schiff’s staff had concealed their contacts with each other, the whistleblower called Atkinson’s office to try to explain why he made false statements in writing and verbally, transgressions that could be punishable with a fine of up to $10,000, imprisonment for up five years, or both, according to the federal form he signed under penalty of perjury.
In his clarification to the inspector general, the whistleblower acknowledged for the first time reaching out to Schiff’s staff before filing the complaint, according to an investigative report filed later that month by Atkinson.
“The whistleblower got caught,” Ratcliffe said. "The whistleblower made false statements. The whistleblower got caught with Chairman Schiff.”
He said the truth about what happened is documented in the transcript of Atkinson’s testimony, which is why Schiff refused to release it.
“The transcript is classified ‘Secret’ so Schiff can prevent you from seeing [Atkinson's] answers to my questions,” Ratcliffe told RCI previously.
Atkinson's actions were instrumental to Schiff's impeachment operation.
"Michael Atkinson is a key anti-Trump conspirator who played a central role in transforming the ‘whistleblower' complaint into the impeachment proceedings,” said Bill Marshall, a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, the conservative government watchdog group that is suing the Justice Department for Atkinson’s internal communications related to the first Trump impeachment.
