During House impeachment hearings last fall, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff repeatedly cut off questioning by Republican lawmakers to protect the identity of the whistleblower who filed the complaint that led to the impeachment of President Trump.
Schiff, who now is the lead House manager in the Senate trial, insisted the whistleblower has "a statutory right to anonymity," citing the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998.
But that law requires only that the inspector general not disclose the whistleblower's name. It does not stop a member of Congress, the president or anyone else from identifying a whistleblower.
Some point to President Obama's directive in 2012 requiring the intelligence community agencies to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. But the guidelines protect whistleblowers from work-related retaliation, including "an appointment, promotion, or performance evaluation, or any other significant change in duties, responsibilities or working conditions."
Revealing the whistleblower's name does not fall under one of these categories.
Robert Litt, former general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under Obama, has argued that outing the whistleblower could be considered retaliatory if the person revealing the name is also a member of the intelligence community. He says "revealing the name could lead to the claim that you've created a hostile work environment and that's a form of retaliation."
Investigative reporter Paul Sperry has reported it's an open secret in Washington that the whistleblower is CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella. Lawyers for the whistleblower have not made an outright denial that their client is Ciaramella.
No legal obligation
At a Trump rally in November, Sen. Rand Paul urged establishment media to name the whistleblower and later threatened to do so himself. Paul later explained on CNN that "the whistleblower statute protects the whistleblower from having his name revealed by the inspector general" but that "no one else is under any legal obligation."
The president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said on ABC's "The View" that "it's only a federal crime for the IG" to out the whistleblower.
Nevertheless, at the Senate impeachment trial on Thursday, Schiff chastised Republicans asking questions about the whistleblower, saying "members of this body used to care about the protection of whistleblower identities."
"When you jeopardize a whistleblower by trying to out them this way, then you are threatening not just this whistleblower but the entire system," he said.
"And the president would like nothing better than that," Schiff continued. "I'm sure the president is applauding this question. Because he wants his pound of flesh, and he wants to punish anyone who has the courage to stand up to him."
Schiff, insisting once again that he doesn't know the whistleblower's identity, said that if "it weren't for this whistleblower, we wouldn't know about this misconduct" of the president.
Rand Paul's question
Chief Justice John Roberts has blocked questions he deems are related to the identity of the whistleblower.
His blocking of a question by Sen. Paul on Wednesday prompted Paul on to post his question on Twitter the next day. Paul said his question was not necessarily about a "whistleblower," explaining he has no independent information on his identity.
"My question is about the actions of known Obama partisans within the NSC and House staff and how they are reported to have conspired before impeachment proceedings had even begun," he wrote on Twitter.
Paul's exact question was: "Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together, and are you aware and how do you respond to reports that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the President before there were formal house impeachment proceedings?"
Roll Call reporter Niels Lesniewski said Paul was fuming during a break in the trial Wednesday.
"I don't want to have to stand up to try and fight for recognition," Paul shouted, according to Lesniewski. "If I have to fight for recognition, I will."
Ciaramella, Misko angered by 'America First'
Schiff initially said the whistleblower would testify in the Senate trial. But the House Intelligence Committee chairman changed his mind after he was caught falsely stating his office had no interaction with the whistleblower before the complaint was filed. And since Sperry reported the whistleblower is Ciaramella, the CIA analyst's political bias and connections have been scrutinized.
Sperry reported last week that just two weeks after Trump took office, Ciaramella was overheard in the White House discussing with Misko how to remove Trump, according to former colleagues.
Ciaramella and Misko -- who later joined Schiff's staff -- were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. Both, Sperry reported, expressed anger over Trump's new "America First" foreign policy, a dramatic change from President Obama's approach to international affairs.
Meanwhile, whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid wrote on Twitter in 2017 that a "coup" had begun against the president. At that time he also called for intelligence community members to help impeach and "get rid" of Trump.
Zaid also acknowledged the whistleblower had contact with a prominent Democratic presidential contender, which has been reported to be Joe Biden.
The Democrats' articles of impeachment against Trump center on the claim that Trump withheld aid to pressure Ukraine to help dig up dirt on Biden, a political rival.
The White House argues the aid was delivered and there was a legitimate public interest in Ukraine assisting with an investigation of the conflict of interest in Hunter Biden -- with no relevant experience -- receiving $1 million a year from a Ukrainian firm under investigation for corruption while his father was Obama's point man for Ukraine policy.