Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa took a stand at odds with President Donald Trump on Thursday, defending protections for whistleblowers as the White House fights back a scandal sparked by alarms raised in the intelligence community.
Trump has engaged in outright attacks on the whistleblower who alerted officials about the president’s efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating his potential political rival Joe Biden. He has called the intelligence community member partisan, suggested that the person and those that provided the information in the complaint are guilty of treason and could deserve the death penalty, and said that he is trying to uncover the whistleblower’s identity.
As NBC News reported, Ernst joined Sen. Chuck Grassley, the other Iowa Republican in the Senate, who stood up for the whistleblower earlier in the week.
View the complete October 4 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.