The FBI announced Monday night that it is "closely" reviewing newly declassified memos revealing that the intelligence community suppressed for years a trove of damaging evidence about the credibility and political bias of the CIA analyst behind President Donald Trump's 2019 impeachment — evidence that was kept hidden from the public, from Congress, and from Trump's own defense lawyers throughout the entire impeachment process.
"The declassified impeachment memos show the so-called whistleblower behind the 2019 impeachment singled out Director Patel by name, relied on hearsay, submitted false claims, and had documented political bias — all of which was hidden from the American people," FBI spokesman Ben Williamson wrote on X Monday evening.
"This is the same playbook used during the Russia collusion hoax — which Director Patel exposed. The FBI has previously been reviewing these revelations closely and will continue to do so," Williamson added.
The statement makes the FBI the latest federal agency to respond publicly to the bombshell story first published Sunday night by Just the News, which revealed that the ICIG's investigators had documented serious concerns about the alleged whistleblower's motivations, credibility, and truthfulness — and that former Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson had kept that evidence classified throughout the impeachment proceedings.
Gabbard Accuses Atkinson of 'Weaponizing' the Whistleblower Process
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, whose office declassified the memos, was direct in her assessment of what the documents reveal and who is responsible for their suppression. Gabbard accused Atkinson of "weaponizing" the whistleblower process to damage Trump, saying the former watchdog deliberately withheld evidence that would have fundamentally changed the public's understanding of the accuser and the legitimacy of the entire impeachment proceeding.
The memos, as first reported by Just the News, document that the Intelligence Community Inspector General's investigators flagged the alleged whistleblower for the "potential for bias," determined that his complaint rested entirely on hearsay with no firsthand knowledge of the conduct alleged, caught him submitting false information by failing to disclose his prior contact with House Intelligence Committee Democrats — including staff working for then-Chairman Adam Schiff — and noted that he had admitted to being a registered Democrat who had worked closely with then-Vice President Joe Biden on Ukraine policy.
All of that evidence was kept classified. Trump's Senate impeachment trial proceeded without it. The president was acquitted, but not before an impeachment built on concealed evidence consumed months of his first term and dominated the national political conversation.
The Same Playbook
The FBI's reference to "the same playbook used during the Russia collusion hoax" is not an offhand remark. It is a deliberate and significant characterization — one that places the Ukraine impeachment within a documented pattern of intelligence community misconduct designed to damage Trump using manufactured or selectively presented evidence.
The Russia collusion hoax was built on a Clinton-campaign-funded dossier that FBI lawyers, including Kevin Clinesmith, used to fraudulently obtain surveillance warrants against Trump campaign advisers — suppressing exculpatory evidence from the FISA court in the process. The Ukraine impeachment was built on allegations from a politically biased CIA analyst with no firsthand knowledge, who coordinated with Schiff's staff before filing and lied about having done so — with the evidence of all of this suppressed by the very watchdog charged with impartial oversight.
Different operations. Same architecture. And in both cases, the evidence of the underlying misconduct was buried until the Trump administration's current declassification campaign began prying it open.
Ciaramella and the Lawfare Connection
The alleged whistleblower's name remains redacted in the newly declassified memos, though some media reports have identified him as retired CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, now working at a Washington think tank as the Ukraine Initiative Director for the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Officials declined to publicly confirm whether Ciaramella is the whistleblower when questioned by Just the News. Ciaramella did not respond to a request for comment.
What is publicly documented is that an individual matching the whistleblower's profile has made multiple appearances on the Lawfare podcast — the outlet whose editor-in-chief, Benjamin Wittes, was described by Politico in 2017 as "the Bard of the Deep State," is a self-described personal friend of fired FBI Director James Comey and disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok, and has been a consistent and vocal Trump critic throughout the period in question. That the alleged impeachment accuser has been a regular presence on a platform run by a Comey intimate and prominent Deep State defender is, to put it gently, consistent with the picture of political motivation painted in the newly declassified memos.
What Comes Next
With the FBI now formally on record as reviewing the revelations, and with the House Intelligence Committee expected to release the transcript of Atkinson's closed-door congressional testimony imminently, the pressure on those responsible for suppressing the ICIG's findings is intensifying. The DOJ is separately building what sources describe as a broader "grand conspiracy" case against former Obama and Biden administration officials for political espionage against Trump — a case that the Ukraine impeachment evidence may well inform.
For the millions of Americans who watched the 2019 impeachment proceedings and accepted, in good faith, the framing that the whistleblower was a credible, unbiased public servant acting on firsthand knowledge of presidential wrongdoing, the declassified memos are a jarring revelation. They were lied to — not by accident, but by design, through the deliberate classification of evidence that would have told a very different story.
The FBI is now looking closely. So should everyone else.
The House Intelligence Committee transcript of former ICIG Michael Atkinson's closed-door testimony is expected to be released imminently. The FBI's review of the declassified impeachment memos is ongoing.
FBI Says It Is 'Closely' Reviewing New Allegations Against Ukraine Impeachment Accuser
- by: Ben Martin
- 2026-04-14
- Source:
patriotuncensored.com
- 04/14/2026
