Right to Confrontation: The Latest Bogus Legal Argument over the ‘Whistleblower’
Excerpt: If there is a prosecution in court, the Justice Department has various disclosure obligations that take precedence over a witness’s interest in remaining anonymous. Whistleblowers who are essential witnesses in criminal prosecutions do not get to remain anonymous. (...) The law imposes this highly qualified confidentiality requirement only on the ICIG. It does not bind other government officials, much less members of Congress, the media, and the public. The point of the law is to shield whistleblowers from reprisals (being fired, demoted, denied promotion, transferred to Anchorage, etc.), not from public identification. The posturing on this point has been patently political. If we were dealing with actual classified information that could compromise a significant national-security program, the media would breathlessly reveal it and lecture us about the public’s “right to know” newsworthy information. And when the whistleblower complaint first emerged, it was impeachment impresario Adam Schiff himself who insisted that the whistleblower had to be brought forward to testify. (...) The confrontation clause protects only the accused at a criminal trial. The point is that before one’s liberty is taken away, one must have the opportunity to question one’s accusers. Impeachment, however, is not even a legal proceeding, much less a criminal trial. It is a political proceeding. [Sometimes, it’s easy to be distracted from what is really going on. McCarthy is metaphorically reminding us that we aren’t baking a cake, we’re building a tree-house. It’s necessary to keep in mind what’s really going on. I added emphasis. Ron P.]
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