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.

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