Whistleblower must ‘step forward’ for ‘credibility,’ Fleitz says

Originally posted on Newsmax

Former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz on Wednesday said the whistleblower behind the complaint leading to the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump should “step forward” to “prove his credibility.”

“I’m not going to confirm the likely identity of the partisan CIA [whistleblower] who began the Dem impeachment ploy,” Fleitz, who also worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department, said on Twitter.

“To prove his credibility, he needs to step forward and let the American people judge him, his motives and whether he collaborated with @RepAdamSchiff in filing his complaint.”

Schiff, D-Calif., is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and is presiding over the televised impeachment hearings that began Wednesday.

The New York Times reported Oct. 2 that Schiff learned of some of the whistleblower’s concerns about President Trump’s July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy “days before” the actual complaint was filed.

The Times report came nearly a week after Fleitz’s analysis of the redacted whistleblower’s complaint released by the Intelligence Committee “suggested the author had a lot of help.”

“Did this whistleblower first meet with House Intelligence Committee members?” Fleitz asked in one of eight Twitter posts.

He later reiterated his hypothesis in an opinion piece for the New York Post and on Newsmax TV.

“Clearly, this whistleblower had some help,” Fleitz told “Newsmax Now” host John Bachman in a Sept. 27 interview.

In a second eight-tweet thread, on the day of the Times report, Fleitz said: “Schiff knew about the CIA whistleblower in advance — way in advance. Before he even filed his complaint.

“This is a much bigger scandal that people realize,” Fleitz continued. “At a minimum, Schiff should recuse himself from this impeachment inquiry.”