The anonymous person who lodged a formal complaint against President Donald Trump for allegedly conspiring with the Ukrainian president to interfere in the 2020 presidential election has been caught in another falsehood as the official memo was released to the public by the House Intelligence Committee Thursday.
The complaint against the president says Ulrich Brechbuhl, the counselor to the State Department, was listening in on the July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to CBS News’ Christina Ruffini, that is false.
“Senior Govt Official tells @CBSNews Counselor to the State Department Ulrich Brechbuhl was NOT on the @POTUS call with #Zelensky, as the whistle blower complaint states,” wrote Ruffini on Twitter.
Scoop: Senior Govt Official tells @CBSNews Counselor to the State Department Ulrich Brechbuhl was NOT on the @POTUS call with #Zelensky, as the whistle blower complaint states.
— Ruffini (@EenaRuffini) September 26, 2019
The new revelation comes as the unknown whistleblower’s complaint led to another round of Democratic calls for impeachment despite the memo largely based on a now-released transcript of the conversation between Trump and Zelensky showing no incriminating requests from the U.S. president.
The complaint is based entirely on hearsay, with the author admitting on the first page of the document to having been “not a direct witness to most of the events described.” It has nevertheless been characterized by Democrats and the media as the smoking gun to finally bring about the president’s impeachment after 86 of their other charges didn’t stick.
The charges mirror those made of the Russian collusion hoax that began three years ago when Trump was accused of working with the Russian government to defeat former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. The accusations were eventually determined to be false following an exhaustive three-year investigation by a special counsel, Robert Mueller, with unlimited resources.
