Louie Gohmert Says That He, of All People, Knows Who the Whistleblower Is

This can't be what the Republican Party wanted. With the party facing a seemingly unending string of negative media coverage and scandal, East Texas U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, basically /r/the_Donald, were the subreddit given breath and a seat in the House of Representatives, has led the news twice this week,...

By Stephen Young

October 25, 2019

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, in deep thought at the U.S. Capitol on July 24, 2019 Chip Somodevilla / Getty

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This can't be what the Republican Party wanted. With the party facing a seemingly unending string of negative media coverage and scandal, East Texas U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, basically /r/the_Donald, were the subreddit given breath and a seat in the House of Representatives, has led the news twice this week, straining against whatever cliché about not making a bad situation worse you'd prefer.

After storming a secure deposition room at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and initiating a truly dumb standoff with the three House committees recording testimony as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, Gohmert took to the airwaves in Dallas and told listeners that he knows the answer to one of the country's biggest ongoing mysteries.

Gohmert told arch-conservative Dallas radio host Mark Davis that he knows, by name, the identity of the whistleblower who spurred the investigation into Trump's alleged threats to withhold foreign aid from Ukraine if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky didn't agree to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and Biden's son, Hunter Biden.

"I don't want to bury the lead here," Davis said. "You know this person by name?"

"Yeah," Gohmert replied.

Davis then asked Gohmert how many other people know the whistleblower's identity.

"I think most everybody in the intelligence community knows who it is," Gohmert said.

Gohmert's statements are in direct contradiction to those made by the House's Republican leadership and the president.

Wednesday, Rep. Jim Jordan, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said that only one member of the House, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, knows the whistleblower's identity.

435 Members of the House.

Only one knows who the “whistleblower” is and who their sources are: @RepAdamSchiff.

Why?
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) October 23, 2019

Jordan and two of his colleagues, Reps. Michael McCaul and Devin Nunes, sent a letter to Schiff on Wednesday as well, complaining that Congress would not be hearing testimony from the "anonymous intelligence community employee whose complaint initiated the so-called impeachment inquiry."

The president got in on the act, too, tweeting "Where's the Whistleblower?" during his executive time Wednesday morning.

Where’s the Whistleblower?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

Maybe he should ask Gohmert.

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