Eric Ciaramella, the alleged "whistleblower" in the first Trump impeachment, may be about to reprise that role in the ongoing Biden impeachment inquiry led by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer.
For those who don't remember, Ciaramella was a CIA analyst who leaked the infamous call Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, 2019, where Trump attempted to convince Zelensky to investigate the endemic corruption within the state-owned gas company Burisma where Hunter Biden sat on the board of directors and drew a salary of at least $50,000 per month.
BACKGROUND: There Is Absolutely Nothing Suspicious and Criminal-Like About Hunter Biden's Ukrainian Director's Salary
Ciaramella, who was serving as a special assistant to National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, leaked the call to a fellow NSC anti-Trumper, LTC Alexander "That's not blubber; that's muscle," Vindman.
The pressure to protect Ciaramella from his duplicity was so intense that social media banned people who mentioned his name.
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Wednesday, Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations brought Ciaramella, who was so toxic after the impeachment that he couldn't find a job in the Biden national security or intelligence operations, back into the limelight as James Comer's impeachment inquiry takes shape. In a lengthy post titled Impeachment ‘Whistleblower’ Was in the Loop of Biden-Ukraine Affairs That Trump Wanted Probed, Sperry details his deep dive into 2,000 pages of recently declassified emails. The emails show that Ciaramella did not link Trump's telephone conversation because of righteous indignation.
A lot of questions have been raised about how the Obama administration, whose Ukraine "point man" was then-Vice President Joe Biden, suddenly soured on Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin's anti-corruption efforts. I apologize for this clip, but YouTube has done a great job of memory-holing copies.
Ciaramella was directly involved in talks concerning the massive U.S. aid package to Ukraine that Biden conditioned on the removal of Shokin, who at the time had seized the assets of the corrupt Burisma oligarch employing Hunter Biden. He also arranged and participated in White House talks with Ukrainian prosecutors visiting from Shokin’s office.
White House visitor logs confirm Ciaramella escorted Shokin’s deputy prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze, into the White House for a January 2016 meeting. A White House agenda for the meeting lists Ciaramella as “point of contact” for the Ukrainian delegation. He also checked in Andriy Telizhenko, the Ukrainian Embassy official who says they discussed Burisma and Hunter Biden during the meeting and struggled to understand why his U.S. counterparts were suddenly hostile to Shokin after praising him in earlier talks.
When Ciaramella got what looks like a "wtf??" email from US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt about Shokin's firing and the aid package, Ciaramella responded as if this was all new to him.
“Yikes. I don’t recall this coming up in our meeting with them,” Ciaramella replied, referring to the White House meeting he hosted with top Ukrainian prosecutors.
But in a closed-door 2020 deposition before the Senate, Pyatt sounded skeptical that Ciaramella was in the dark about the decision. “I think you have to ask Eric what he meant by ‘Yikes,’” Pyatt told Senate investigators. He said that he believed conditioning the loan guarantee on Shokin’s removal “obviously came up in those meetings” hosted by Ciaramella, suggesting that Biden’s aide knew of the quid pro quo before Pyatt circulated the article about it from the Ukrainian press.
The day before he hosted the Ukraine prosecutors, Ciaramella received an agenda from a State Department official that asked him to “note the importance of appointing a new PG [Prosecutor General], reiterating that Shokin is an obstacle to reform,” according to emails. The agenda also called on Ciaramella to “ask the del [Ukrainian delegation] what high-level cases are on the docket for prosecution,” which raises suspicions in some quarters that Biden’s advisers were fishing for information about Shokin’s plans for prosecuting Burisma oligarchs, something Hunter Biden had been asked to find out.
He does seem to have successfully duped Adam Schiff, though that is an extraordinarily low bar to hop over.
Ciaramella tried to marshal a defense for Biden in the whistleblower complaint he sent to Rep. Adam Schiff in August 2019. He listed among Trump’s concerns at the time of the fateful July phone call “that former Vice President Biden had pressured Poroshenko in 2016 to fire Shokin in order to quash a purported criminal probe into Burisma Holdings.” But Ciaramella attempted to pour cold water on the notion by referencing a Bloomberg News article that quoted a “former senior Ukrainian prosecutor” who falsely claimed “that Mr. Shokin in fact was not investigating Burisma at the time of his removal in 2016.”
Ciaramella seems to be at ground zero regarding the Biden Crime Family corruption in Ukraine.
- Hosted, cleared into the White House, and met face-to-face there with senior Ukrainian prosecutors.
- Gave a “readout” of the meeting to his superiors, who in turn pushed for Shokin’s firing.
- Traveled with Biden to Kyiv during the 2015 trip during which Biden demanded Shokin’s firing.
- Wrote media “talking points” for Ukrainian officials.
- Huddled with the top Biden officials involved in discussions concerning the $1 billion aid package and Shokin, including: Amos Hochstein; Victoria Nuland; Geoffrey Pyatt; Bridget Brink; and Michael Carpenter.
- Corresponded with Biden officials coordinating responses to negative media reports about Hunter’s cushy and controversial Burisma job.
The emails quoted in Sperry's story imply that Ciaramella was involved in Biden's scheme to prevent a criminal probe of Burisma and actively covered up the truth. His role in Shokin's firing also reveals his leak of the Trump phone call as a ruse to distract from the real issue.
Should Comer's impeachment inquiry go anywhere, and there is a lot of reason to doubt that, given overt Democrat obstruction, it will, Ciaramella could be the critical man linking Joe Biden to the coverup of the Biden Crime Family corruption in Ukraine and Biden's successful attempt to save his son from prosecution by using US taxpayer money as a bribe.