Ex-NYPD Commissioner Calls Whistleblower 'Covert Operative,' Alleges 'Attempted Coup'
Former New York City Police Department Commissioner Bernard Kerik on Monday said that the Trump administration whistleblower was a “covert operative” engaged in an “attempted coup” against the president.
The whistleblower came to national attention after filing an official complaint about President Donald Trump’s now-infamous phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president and current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Appearing on “Fox and Friends,” Kerik objected to the whistleblower’s complaint and the larger problem it represents.
“I think you’re going to find out there [were] communications between the congressional staff and the alleged whistleblower,” Kerik said, according to Fox News. “I don’t like calling him a whistleblower. He’s a covert operative that was within the administration that put this stuff out there.
“[He] had no personal knowledge,” Kerik continued. “They changed that reporting requirement, basically, so this guy could get this thing public. It’s nonsense.”
Kerik’s statements echo the critique made by Trump attorney Jay Sekulow: that the whistleblower didn’t act alone.
“This wasn’t drafted by this individual. This was written by a law firm,” Sekulow said Friday on “Fox and Friends.”
“Look at the phraseology, the endnotes and the footnotes.”
Former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova has also criticized the whistleblower.
“He doesn’t need to be feted, he needs to go to prison,” diGenova said last week on Fox’s “Hannity.”
Furthermore, the whistleblower himself has admitted that his complaint is not based on a firsthand account.
“I was not a direct witness to most of the events described,” the complaint says.
Kerik’s comments, however, go a step beyond Sekulow and Giuliani’s criticisms.
For Kerik, the whistleblower complaint is only the latest in a long series of attempts from within the government to remove Trump from office.
“This is an attempted coup of the president of the United States that has been going on for almost three years now,” he said. “This is just another element of it.”
“I can’t wait for these so-called hearings.”
Kerik, who was appointed NYPD Commissioner by former New York City Rudy Giuliani and who later worked at his consulting firm, also defended the former mayor and current Trump lawyer.
“And then they attack Rudy Giuliani,” he said. “If there’s a whistleblower here, it’s not this clown that wrote this document.
“The whistleblower is Giuliani. He’s been talking … about … the Biden stuff since last year.”
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