Donald Trump’s own former national security officials sign open letter applauding the Ukraine whistleblower — who they say deserves protection

President Donald Trump has been angrily railing against the whistleblower in the U.S. federal government who set off the Ukraine scandal and paved the way for an impeachment inquiry, even going so far as to imply during a recent United Nations (UN) event that the whistleblower and that person’s sources should be executed for treason. But a long list of former national security officials — including former CIA Director John O’ Brennan — are rallying behind the whistleblower. And Brennan is among the 90 former security officials who signed an open letter asserting that the whistleblower did nothing wrong.

The letter explains, “While the identity of the whistleblower is not publicly known, we do know that he or she is an employee of the U.S. government. As such, he or she has, by law, the right — and indeed the responsibility — to make known, through appropriate channels, indications of serious wrongdoing. That is precisely what this whistleblower did, and we applaud the whistleblower not only for living up to that responsibility, but also, for using precisely the channels made available by federal law for raising such concerns.”

The letter, which was also signed by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, goes on to state that “a responsible whistleblower makes all Americans safer by ensuring that serious wrongdoing can be investigated and addressed, thus advancing the cause of national security to which we have devoted our careers.”

View the complete October 7 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.