Ukraine whistleblower said he didn’t want his bias noted, and IC watchdog seemingly obliged

Eric Ciaramella, the whistle-blower whose complaint sparked the Ukraine impeachment saga in 2019, sought to downplay allegations of political motivation following media reports about his potential biases, with the intelligence community watchdog soon asserting to the House that, despite the evidence, he did not believe the whistle-blower was biased.

Memos declassified by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and released by Just the News on Sunday were written by investigators for intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson, who first handled the CIA analyst's complaint.

The newly-released memos flagged the Ukraine whistle-blower for having a "potential for bias," elicited an apology from him for misleading the probe about his prior contact with staffers on the Democrat-led House Intelligence Committee, showed he criticized GOP congressmen, recounted that he asked to hide his complaint from Republicans on the intelligence committee, pointed to his close links to Joe Biden’s efforts in Ukraine, and more. Atkinson kept much of this from the House investigators.

Atkinson wrote a late August 2019 letter to then-Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire where he admitted only that there were “some” indicators of “arguable” bias by Ciaramella.

“Although the ICIG’s preliminary review identified some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate, such evidence did not change my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern ‘appears credible,’ particularly given the other information the ICIG obtained during its preliminary review,” Atkinson said in the August 26, 2019 letter.

The newly-declassified memos indicate this conclusion — and the media attention it received — prompted Ciaramella to reach back out to the intelligence community watchdog’s investigators.

“On September 26, 2019, at approximately 8:45 a.m., Complainant contacted writer via secure line,” one memo says. “Complainant had concerns over wording in letter from ICIG to DNI Maguire, specific to ‘indicia of arguable political bias.’ Complainant expressed concern that he/she had someone indicated to writer during interview of support for a particular political candidate, which would not have been correct or intentional.”

A few days later, an investigative memo said that “writer spoke with Complainant regarding desire to remain confidential. Complainant confirmed he/she wished to remain confidential and to not have ID released, in the form of documents or otherwise.”

Ciaramella did not respond to a request for comment sent to him through the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is listed as the Ukraine Initiative Director for the Russia and Eurasia Program.

Intel watchdog’s testimony reveals redacted forms and concealed facts

The self-admitted potential biases which the Ukraine impeachment whistle-blower relayed to investigators for the intelligence community watchdog during the first Trump Administration were redacted and concealed from House investigators in 2019, newly-declassified and released transcripts show.

These long-secret transcripts were from a mid-September 2019 unclassified session and an early October 2019 classified session which were held to examine then-Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson’s role in the handling of an alleged whistleblower complaint. The missive was written by an anonymous intelligence officer — identified as Eric Ciaramella — in a saga which ultimately led to the first impeachment efforts by House Democrats against Trump in December 2019. Trump was acquitted by the Senate in early 2020.

The newly-released memos from 2019 laid out multiple self-admitted potential biases tied to Ciaramella’s Democratic registration, his work for Joe Biden, his knowledge of corruption-related discussions on Ukraine, his view that he had been pushed out of the Trump NSC because of right-wing bloggers, and more — some of which were never made public until Sunday, and many of which were concealed from House investigators when the intelligence community inspector general appeared before them in October 2019.

"Our adversarial system of justice requires the government to turn all exculpatory evidence over to the accused. That’s especially true when lawmakers seek to remove a duly elected president through impeachment and a Senate trial," Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, one of Trump's defense lawyers in the Ukraine impeachment case, told Just the News on Sunday.

Bias and credibility hidden by bureaucrats

"The evidence about the bias and credibility of the whistle-blower who started the scandal should have been front and center in the 2019 impeachment, but it was hidden by bureaucrats and that was a disservice to justice and to the American people," Dershowitz said.

During the second since-declassified House Intelligence Committee session — on October 4, 2019 — the newly-released transcripts show Atkinson stated that “as part of the complainant's interview, I had directed the interviewers to ask the complainant to self-disclose potential bias information. The complainant self-disclosed that the complainant was a registered member of the Democratic Party. The complainant also self-disclosed that the complainant had a prior professional relationship with one of the Democratic Presidential candidates for the 2020 election.”

The whistle-blower complaint centered on a July 25, 2019, phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  The Trump-Zelensky call was the day after Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony on the findings of his special counsel investigation.

The inspector general left out a raft of details related to Ciaramella’s work with then-Vice President Joe Biden, the whistle-blower's long-term focus on Ukraine, Ciaramella’s travel to Ukraine with Biden, and his presence at discussions about the alleged corruption of Ukrainian prosecutors — all admitted by Ciaramella to watchdog investigators, all related to the allegations raised by Trump with Zelensky, and all redacted from what was provided to the House Intelligence Committee at the time in 2019. Atkinson redacted other potential biases too.

“I directed the interviewers — which was my practice as a former prosecutor with all witnesses, is to ask the witness, if someone wanted to argue that you as a witness had a bias, what could they point to?” Atkinson told the House Intelligence Committee during the classified session in October 2019. “So, basically, that was the question I asked the interviewers to ask of the complainant. If someone wanted to make a claim that you were biased in any way, what could they point to? That’s the question that was — I wasn't there, but that's the essence of what I wanted the interviewers to ask.”

Atkinson added: “And what my understanding is, what the complainant came back with was the registered — [redacted] registered with the Democratic Party and that [redacted] had a prior professional relationship with one of the Democratic Presidential candidates for the 2020 election.”

“Now, to be clear, the complainant did not say that the complainant was, in fact, biased. The complainant said, well, if someone wanted to make that argument, here is what they might point to,” the intelligence community watchdog continued. “And that's why in my transmittal I described it as indicia of an arguable political bias. I did not find that the complainant was biased. What we relied on was the self-disclosure of the complainant.”

Biases hidden from public view

A yet-redacted questioner said during the 2019 session that “we will enter this interview of complainant [Ciaramella] dated August 20 into the record” as an exhibit. The exhibit appears to be a redacted version of a largely unredacted memo obtained by Just the News and made public on Sunday.

“On page 27 of that, there is a section called ‘Potential for Bias’ and there appear to be three topics that the complainant mentioned could be used against [redacted] to demonstrate political bias,” the questioner told Atkinson, going on to note that two of the three buckets of Ciaramella’s self-admitted potential biases were largely redacted.

“The first says, ‘first complainant worked with…’ and then the remainder is redacted,” the questioner noted.

The largely-unredacted version of the memo, only released to the public half a decade later, stated that “first, the complainant worked closely with Vice President Biden as an expert on Ukraine. [Redacted] traveled with Biden to Ukraine and was part of conversations where [Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy] Lutsenko corruption was discussed.” Lutsenko had taken over the position after Viktor Shokin was fired following pressure from Biden.

Trump and his allies claimed Biden improperly used his position as vice president to pressure Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, Shokin, to protect his son Hunter Biden from an investigation into the corrupt Ukrainian energy giant Burisma, where Hunter held a lucrative position. Democrats said the focus on Burisma was part of an effort to hurt Trump’s main rival in the 2020 contest. The former vice president had threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Ukraine did not fire Shokin, who was criticized by some in the West for not doing enough to crack down on corruption. 

Biden boasted to The Atlantic in 2016 and to a Council on Foreign Relations panel in 2018 that he ordered Ukraine to fire Shokin or else the White House would renege on a commitment to provide significant aid.

The redacted questioner told Atkinson during the 2019 session that “you've now said today that the complainant worked closely with one of the presidential candidates for the 2020 election” and asked, “is that what is redacted in the first bullet point here?”

“Yes,” Atkinson told the House investigators.

The redacted questioner noted to Atkinson in 2019 that “the second” section on Ciaramella’s biases “is entirely redacted.”

Multiple outlets had reported on Ciaramella’s departure from the Trump NSC well before he filed his whistle-blower complaint.

Foreign Policy reported in 2017, the New Yorker reported in 2018, and Politico reported in March 2019 — all prior to his filing a whistle-blower complaint — that Ciaramella had been scrutinized by right-wing bloggers as a suspected leaker and had left the NSC early.

Steve Bannon, a member of the Trump NSC in the first half of 2017, told Vice News in November 2019 that “when I was in the White House, there was a number of people on the National Security Council — he eventually, the named individual, eventually got let go, I believe because people were suspicious, not me, but other people around him, were suspicious about his leaking, and that’s why he was let go.”

The redacted questioner said during the 2019 session that “the third” indicator of bias “is that the complainant is a registered Democrat.” Nonetheless, Atkinson went on to tell the House Intelligence Committee repeatedly in October 2019 that he and Ciaramella’s CIA supervisors did not believe the whistle-blower's complaint had been motivated by politics.

“I thought that it's not that — it didn't — what the complainant did as part of his responsibilities, and the supervisors talk about this, is that the reports that the complainant worked on were in line with the views of the Intelligence Community,” the watchdog said.

The intelligence community inspector general’s team spoke with two of the whistle-blower's alleged supervisors, with Atkinson saying the duo also defended Ciaramella’s supposed lack of bias.

“Also on August 20th, 2019, the IC IG interviewers spoke with two of the complainant's supervisors. We have produced redacted versions of those memorandum of investigative activity,” the watchdog told the House investigators. “Both supervisors indicated that the complainant was highly respected, a top performer. and a serious and knowledgeable expert on much of the subject matter upon which the complaint touched. Both supervisors considered the complainant to be a credible person. Neither supervisor considered the complainant to be biased in any way.”

The inspector general said “correct” when asked if he was denying that Ciaramella’s Ukraine-related work for Biden and the Obama administration could have indicated political or partisan bias when filing the complaint.

Atkinson then said “right” when asked if he had “deemed there to be two potential issues that may or may not reflect some degree of political bias, the fact that he or she had previously worked for a candidate” and that the whistle-blower “is a registered Democrat” — seemingly underselling the full extent of Ciaramella’s potential biases.

“Just to be clear, I am not saying that the other — the information that's redacted is irrelevant information,” the watchdog added. “It is information that, as the investigation goes on, it might be relevant information. And I understood that that information would become available to all — to the investigators in what I will call phase two of the investigation when other people got involved, but that information I did not deem necessary to include in my transmittal letter and it did not impact my credibility determination.”

Atkinson insists he never thought whistle-blower was biased

Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, also noted during the October 2019 session that the key parts of the bias section on the whistle-blower were redacted. “I'm looking at the complainant's interview and it reads, first, potential for bias. It says, first complainant worked closely with, and then it's all redacted,” the congressman said. “And then the second one, it just says second, and that’s all redacted. And the final thing is, complainant is a registered Democrat.”

Atkinson would not provide much detail on what was redacted, saying “that’s correct” when asked if the whistle-blower relationship with Trump’s unnamed Democratic presidential rival had been a working relationship.

"As Director Ratcliffe made clear as a member of President Trump's impeachment advisory team in 2019, this impeachment was entirely baseless, unfounded, and brought in politically-motivated bad faith," CIA Director of Public of Affairs Liz Lyons said in a statement to Just the News on Monday.

Leaks to the media only tell part of the story

Media leaks from October 2019 appeared to resemble a limited hangout on Ciaramella’s biases.

“Breaking — A source familiar with the investigation prompted by the whistle-blower tells me that the ‘indicia of bias of an arguable political bias on the part’ of the whistle-blower referred to by the Intel Community IG, is that the whistle-blower is a Registered Democrat,” CNN host Jake Tapper tweeted in early October 2019.

Ciaramella's lawyer Mark Zaid tweeted in response, “I understand @jaketapper at @CNN reported my client's pol bias, as stated in @ODNIgov IG memo, was nothing more than #whistleblower registered Democrat. We won't comment on identifying info but if true, give me a break! Bias? Seriously? Most ppl are.” “Partisanship not involved. Don't let anyone argue differently,” Zaid tweeted.

But Ciaramella’s Democratic registration was by no means the only nor the most significant indicator of bias.

CNN also reported at the time that Zaid and fellow whistle-blower lawyer Bakaj told the outlet that the indicia of bias could potentially also include that the whistleblower, as a government employee, came “into contact with presidential candidates from both parties in their roles as elected officials – not as candidates.”

The Washington Examiner soon reported a few days later that the concerns about bias weren’t just about Ciaramella’s Democratic registration, but about his professional relationship with an unnamed Democratic presidential candidate — closer to the reality of Ciaramella’s biases, but still not close to the full picture.

“Under questioning from Republicans during last Friday’s impeachment inquiry interview with Atkinson, the inspector general revealed that the whistleblower’s possible bias was not that he was simply a registered Democrat,” the outlet wrote. “It was that he had a significant tie to one of the Democratic presidential candidates currently vying to challenge President Trump in next year’s election.”

The next day, Zaid and Bakaj issued a statement again seeking to downplay their client’s biases, saying, "In light of the ongoing efforts to mischaracterize whistleblower #1’s alleged ‘bias’ in order to detract from the substance of the complaint, we will attempt to clarify some facts."

“First, our client has never worked for or advised a political candidate, campaign, or party. Second, our client has spent their entire government career in apolitical, civil servant positions in the Executive Branch,” Zaid and Bakaj wrote.

The lawyers added: “Third, in these positions our client has come into contact with presidential candidates from both parties in their roles as elected officials – not as candidates. Fourth, the whistle-blower voluntarily provided relevant career information to the ICIG in order to facilitate an assessment of the credibility of the complaint. Fifth, as a result, the ICIG concluded – as is well known – that the complaint was both urgent and credible.”

“Finally, the whistle-blower is not the story,” Ciaramella’s lawyers insisted.

Whistle-blower was closely tied to Biden’s efforts in Ukraine

Ciaramella’s connections to Joe Biden — and his role in the exact Ukraine controversies which were the subject of the Ukraine impeachment effort — were not fully revealed during the impeachment saga.

The newly-declassified memos released by Just the News on Sunday show the intelligence community watchdog’s investigators were also acutely aware the whistle-blower's allegations were based solely on second-hand or third-hand accounts about what Trump was alleged to have done and that Ciaramella had worked on his whistle-blower efforts with a witness whose name was redacted but who told investigators that he was connected to disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok and that he had co-authored the flawed intelligence community assessment on alleged Russian meddling in 2016.

The revelations in the declassified memos are the most explosive — but not the only — revelations about the whistle-blower that have emerged in recent years, with many of the details about Ciaramella only becoming public months or years after the Ukraine-related impeachment effort against Trump.

Ciaramella had been listed as the Director for Baltic and Eastern European Affairs on the Obama NSC and as having been affiliated with the Interagency Policy Committee — a task force created to advise the Obama White House on whether Ukraine was cleaning up its endemic corruption and deserved more Western foreign aid.

Judicial Watch and GOP Senate investigators later released White House visitor logs detailing Ciaramella’s visits and meetings at the Obama White House, including ones related to Ukraine. Just the News also provided further detail on Ciaramella’s Ukraine-related meetings with Joe Biden and the whistleblower’s critical role in advancing the Obama Administration’s Ukraine efforts, which were spearheaded by Joe Biden.

Ciaramella’s key role in pushing the Biden-led Obama Administration efforts in Ukraine did not fully emerge until after the Trump impeachment effort — and, as the newly-released transcripts show, it was among the many elements concealed during the House Intelligence Committee’s questioning of the intelligence community watchdog who initially handled the whistle-blower's complaint.

Whistleblower also concealed discussion with Schiff staff

The “Disclosure of Urgent Concern Form” submitted by Ciaramella on August 13, 2019 included answering a section titled, “I have previously disclosed (or am disclosing) the violations alleged here to (complete all that apply).”

He checked a box next to “other office of department/agency involved” and said he had already spoken with the CIA Office of General Counsel, the CIA's Election Security Mission Manager, the National Intelligence Officer for Russia, and the Chair and Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council.

But he did not check “Congress or congressional committee(s)” despite having spoken with the staff of then-Congressman and now-Senator Adam Schiff before submitting his disclosure. Schiff, a California Democrat and House Intelligence Committee chairman at the time, told MSNBC in September 2019 that “we have not spoken directly with the whistle-blower” — even though members of his staff already had.

“We would like to, but I’m sure the whistle-blower has concerns, that he has not been advised, as the law requires, by the inspector general or the director of national intelligence just as to how he is to communicate with Congress, and so the risk to the whistle-blower is retaliation,” Schiff added.

A Schiff spokesperson soon told Fox News in October 2019 that Schiff himself "does not know the identity of the whistle-blower, and has not met with or spoken with the whistleblower or their counsel" for any reason. An aide to Schiff claimed to the outlet that when Schiff had contended that "we" had not spoken to the whistle-blower, he was allegedly referring to members of the full House intelligence committee, rather than referencing staff. 

The Democrat-led House Intelligence Committee spokesman at the time, Patrick Boland, argued to CNN that it was a “regular occurrence” for a whistle-blower to reach out to the committee for help and said that the Schiff staff “appropriately advised” the whistle-blower.

“Like other whistle-blowers have done before and since under Republican and Democratic-controlled committees, the whistle-blower contacted the committee for guidance on how to report possible wrongdoing within the jurisdiction of the intelligence community,” Boland told The New York Times that month. “At no point did the committee review or receive the complaint in advance.”

Ciaramella spoke with Atkinson on October 8, 2019 where Ciaramella admitted that he had spoken with Schiff staff beforehand yet had not checked the proper box, with the whistle-blower both defending his actions and apologizing.

“Complainant did not feel it was necessary to check that particular box because he/she had not provided any substantive information. His/her questions were only procedural in nature, asking how to submit the concern,” the memo continued. “The person Complainant asked told him/her to, "Do it right, hire a lawyer, and contact the ICIG." So, that is what the Complainant did. At the time, Complainant did not even know what the ICIG was.”

The memo added: “Based on getting guidance on a procedural question, and that no substance of the actual disclosure was discussed, Complainant did not feel, based on the way the form question was worded, that it was necessary to check that box. Complainant advised he/she was sorry for any problems caused for Mr. Atkinson due to the way he/she answered that question, as it was certainly not his/her intent.”

Democrats help keep the whistle-blower’s background out of the impeachment debate

The Democrat-led House Intelligence Committee’s December 2019 lengthy impeachment report did not include the word “bias” and made no mention of the whistle-blower's extensive potential political motivations and biases.

“Federal law prohibits the Inspector General from revealing the whistle-blower's identity. Federal law also protects the whistle-blower from retaliation,” the Democratic report said. “In more than 100 public statements about the whistle-blower over a period of just two months, the President publicly questioned the whistle-blower's motives, disputed the accuracy of the whistle-blower's account, and encouraged others to reveal the whistle-blower's identity.”

The House Republican staff report on the Ukraine impeachment in December 2019 repeatedly raised the issue of Ciaramella’s alleged biases, but significant facts had been concealed from them.

The Republican report added: “This relationship is significant because President Obama relied upon Vice President Biden to be the Obama Administration’s point person for Ukrainian policy. This relationship suggests that, aside from any partisan bias in support of Vice President Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, the whistle-blower may also have had a bias in favor of Vice President Biden’s Ukrainian policies instead of those of President Trump.”

Gabbard said Monday that “deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that was used by Congress to usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected President of the United States.”