Years after the political earthquake that was Donald Trump’s first impeachment, the story is roaring back to life — and this time, the spotlight isn’t on Trump. It’s on the very figures who helped set the whole thing in motion.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has now kicked things up a notch, sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department tied to former Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson and the still-anonymous whistleblower whose complaint lit the fuse back in 2019.
The complaint is the one that Democrats seized on to launch impeachment proceedings over Trump’s now-infamous July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Back then, the narrative was airtight: Trump allegedly pressured Zelenskyy to dig into the Biden family’s dealings in Ukraine, including Hunter Biden’s cushy role at Burisma Holdings and Joe Biden’s involvement in the ouster of Ukraine’s top prosecutor. Democrats painted it as a classic quid pro quo, pointing to temporarily paused U.S. military aid as leverage and accusing Trump of trying to tilt the 2020 election.
Fast-forward to today, and the script is getting a rewrite — a dramatic one. According to newly declassified records released by DNI Tulsi Gabbard, what was once billed as a whistleblower-driven alarm bell may have been something far more orchestrated.
“Today we reveal the truth,” Gabbard declared, pulling no punches.
“Newly-declassified records expose how deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that Congress used to usurp the will of the American people and impeach duly-elected President @realDonaldTrump in 2019.”
The criminal referral itself, sent by ODNI’s general counsel, raises the stakes even higher: “I want to refer information that may constitute possible criminal activity in violation of federal criminal law committed by one or more former employees of the intelligence community.”
Dig into the details, and the allegations get even more explosive. Officials familiar with the referral say the focus zeroes in on whether Atkinson cut corners — or worse — in handling the complaint. Specifically, whether he “failed to conduct basic due diligence” and “willfully exceeded his statutory jurisdiction” by labeling the Trump-Zelensky call an “urgent concern” and rushing it to Congress.
Even more eyebrow-raising: Atkinson himself reportedly flagged the whistleblower for possible political bias, noting the individual appeared “in favor of a rival political candidate.”
That little detail didn’t exactly headline the coverage back in 2019.
