White House senior adviser Stephen Miller defended President Donald Trump’s attempts to get the Ukrainian president to open an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, claiming on Sunday that this was a “political hit job” by the “deep state” and that Trump was really the “whistleblower.”
Minutes after breaking the blockbuster news that Trump-defending lawyers Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova were working “off the books” to help Rudy Giuliani dig up Ukrainian dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden at the behest of President Trump, Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace dug into a predictably tense interview with Miller.
Immediately, the pugnacious Trump aide blasted the whistleblower who came forward with a complaint of Trump’s actions, saying a “partisan hit job does not make you a whistleblower just because you go through the Whistleblower Protection Act,” adding that it’s unfortunate the media continues to call the unknown individual a “whistleblower.”
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Wallace, meanwhile, wondered aloud how Miller could describe the whistleblower as partisan when we don’t know who the person is, noting that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testified that the whistleblower acted in “good faith throughout.”
Miller would go on to grouse that the complaint “drips with condescension” and “contempt for the president” while claiming both the DNI and intelligence community inspector general were “wrong” to say the whistleblower’s comments were “credible and a matter of urgent concern.”
“I know what the deep state looks like,” Miller declared. “I know the difference between a whistleblower and a deep state operative. This is a deep state operative, pure and simple.”
Wallace attempted to move past Miller’s name-calling and combativeness, saying that was “enough of the rhetoric,” but the White House senior adviser continued to play for an audience of one and offer a full-throated defense of Trump’s actions.
“I don’t understand how you can ask the question while at the same time admonishing the president or wanting to get to the bottom of perhaps one of the biggest corruption scandals concerning Ukraine in the last few years,” Miller complained at one point.
Wallace, for his part, attempted to keep Miller on track, asking Miller why the president was going against his State Department and the Pentagon when it came to withholding military aid to Ukraine around the time of his call with the Ukrainian president.
Miller grumbled about Wallace’s judgmental “tone” while deflecting the Fox host’s question before describing Trump as a hero looking to expose the truth on the Bidens.
“It’s the president’s job and sworn duty to safeguard taxpayer dollars and the United States government’s foreign policy,” Miller huffed. “Getting to the bottom of a corruption scandal in Ukraine is in the American national interest.”
“And if you want to understand why that complaint is so obviously politically biased, when he says that the president is threatening national security by trying to expose corruption—when he says, or she, that the president is hurting national security by trying to get to the bottom of a gigantic scandal that nobody has unearthed,” he added. “The president is the whistleblower here! The President of the United States is the whistleblower. And this individual is a saboteur trying to undermine a democratically elected government!”
Wallace would go on to note that the former Ukrainian prosecutor general has repeatedly said that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden or his son Hunter.
