Oversight

Trump’s Ukraine Scandal Shows Why Leaks Are Vital to Democracy

Yet lawmakers of both stripes demonize people who share information with the press

U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shake hands during a meeting in New York on September 25, 2019. Photo: Saul Loeb/Getty Images

Donald Trump is now closer than ever to being impeached by the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has finally opened the door to bringing charges after Trump was caught pressuring a foreign country to help him win the 2020 election and trying to stifle a whistleblower complaint.

And if impeachment indeed happens, we’ll have not only that whistleblower to thank, but also leaks to the press.

As everyone now knows — and has been confirmed by a rough transcript released by the White House itself — Trump tried to push Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Trump even offered up the Justice Department’s services to Zelenskiy in any potential criminal investigation he wished to conduct into the younger Biden.

Up until a week ago, though, the public and Congress weren’t aware of any of these facts. We knew only that an unnamed intelligence official had filed a Trump-related complaint with the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and the DNI had refused to hand over the whistleblower report to Congress, despite being required to by law.

While that initial controversy did get some media coverage, it wouldn’t have been anything close to the scandal it is today if not for some dogged reporting by several news outlets. Newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times soon started publishing bits of information allegedly contained within the whistleblower complaint.

First we learned that the complaint involved President Trump. Then we learned that it centered on a call with a foreign leader. Finally, we learned that it involved a call with the Ukrainian president and Trump’s alleged attempts to pressure Ukraine to help investigate Hunter Biden.

All of this information (which has since been made public by Trump himself) was almost certainly classified. The person or people who leaked it to the Washington Post and other newspapers were breaking the law.