Rep. Ratcliffe: Whistleblower’s Account Is All ‘Second’ and ‘Third Hand’ Information

EXCERPT:

RATCLIFFE: “Let me turn to the matter that we’re here for, a lot of talk about this whistleblower complaint. The question is, at this point, given what we have, why all the focus on this whistleblower? The best evidence of what President Trump said to President Zelensky is a transcript of what President Trump said to President Zelensky. I'm not casting aspersions on the whistleblower’s good faith or their intent, but a secondhand account of something someone didn’t hear isn’t as good as the best evidence of what was actually said. And to that point, despite good faith, the whistleblower is, in fact, wrong in numerous respects. And I know everyone is not going to have time to read the whistleblower's complaint, but the whistleblower says that I am deeply concerned -- talking about the president -- that there was a serious or flagrant problem, abuse or violation of the law. The whistleblower then goes on to say, I was not a direct witness to the events described, however I found my colleagues’ accounts of this to be credible. And then talking about those accounts of which this whistleblower complaint is based on, the whistleblower tells us the officials that I spoke with told me, and I was told that, and I learned from multiple U.S. officials that, and White House officials told me that, and I also learned from multiple U.S. officials that -- in other words all of this is secondhand information, none of it is firsthand information. The whistleblower then goes on to cite additional sources besides those secondhand information. Those sources happen to include main stream media, the sources that the whistleblower bases the complaints on include 'The Washington Post, 'The New York Times,' 'Politico,' 'The Hill,' 'Bloomberg,' ABC News and others. In other words, much like the Steele dossier, the allegations in the whistleblower's complaints are based on thirdhand main stream media sources rather than firsthand information.”