Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, who appeared on FOX News on Sunday to discuss the Ukraine scandal, branded the so-called whistleblower’s complaint a “seven-page little Nancy Drew novel” dripping with “condescension, righteous indignation and contempt for the president”.
Miller even refused to refer to the person as a whistleblower at all, questioning the motives behind the complaint, as he expanded his accusations against the mysterious accuser, saying that “a partisan hit-job does not make you a whistleblower just because you go through the whistleblower protection act”.
The White House adviser dismissed a statement by acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire that this person had acted in “good faith”, pointing to the conclusion of Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who “found evidence of political bias”.
“I know what the Deep State looks like. I know the difference between a whistleblower and a Deep-State operative. This is a Deep State operative pure and simple”, Miller said.
Miller referred to the people behind the story as “a group of unelected bureaucrats who think that they need to take down this president” and claimed that they “publish fake stories”.
According to the adviser, it is Donald Trump who should be called the “whistleblower”.
“The president of the United States is the whistleblower and this individual is a saboteur trying to undermine a democratically elected government”, Miller told host Chris Wallace.
On Sunday, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff told ABC News that the anonymous complainant has agreed to testify before Congress. The congressman, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said it will happen "very soon", after attorneys representing the person in question can get security clearances and attend the testimony. He has not set a date, however. According to the politician, protecting the whistleblower’s identity remains the biggest concern, as he pointed to Trump’s alleged remarks at a private event where he reportedly said that the person had committed treason and deserves punishment.
In the scandalous complaint, the whistleblower claimed that in the course of a telephone call Trump urged his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business dealings of Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden's son, with a Ukrainian gas company. According to the report, Trump pressured Zelensky to open an investigation as a means of hurting the Democratic presidential candidate's chances and help to secure his own 2020 re-election bid.
After the report emerged, House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry against the US president, claiming that he had committed “high crimes and misdemeanours”. However, Republicans have rejected the allegations, stressing that Trump has not violated any law, adding that the case is an operation ahead of the 2020 election, while Trump has moved to spin the impeachment proceedings as an attempt to destroy the Republican Party.