US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has said he wants to meet the anonymous whistleblower at the centre of the scandal that is threatening his leadership.
In a series of tweets yesterday evening, he also hit out at the media and his rivals from the Democrat party as he railed against an impeachment inquiry which was launched last week.
The probe was triggered by the release of a rough transcript of a phone call from July, when Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a potential Democratic candidate in the 2020 US election, and his son.
He also enlisted his attorney general and personal lawyer to help in that effort.
The whistleblower filed a complaint over the contents of the conversation in August, saying Trump attempted to get a foreign power to interfere in a US election for his own gain.
They also alleged that the White House tried to “lock down” Trump’s 25 July phone call with the Ukrainian president because officials were worried about his request for help.
Last night, Trump said he had a right to meet the whistleblower, whom he also claimed to have misrepresented details of the phone call, as well as the individual he believes gave information about the call to them.
“Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called ‘whistleblower’, represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way,” he tweeted.
He also alleged that the de facto leader of the congressional inquiry, Adam Schiff, lied to Congress last week about what Trump said to the president of Ukraine, and that he should be punished.
“His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber,” Trump tweeted.
“He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for fraud and treason.”
Trump repeatedly sought to discredit the whistleblower last week, accusing the anonymous CIA officer of having a political motivation.
His advisers, however, confirmed some details of the whistleblower’s complaint, but offered different explanations for the White House’s actions.
On Friday, the White House acknowledged the Ukraine call was moved to a highly classified system at the direction of National Security Council lawyers.
With reporting from - © AFP 2019 and Associated Press.
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