President Trump raised eyebrows Thursday by likening the people behind a whistleblower complaint roiling Washington to “spies” who should face dire consequences, like “in the old days.”
Mr. Trump made the remarks to U.N. Ambassador Kelly Craft and her staff during a private event at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York, according to the L.A. Times, which posted audio from an attendee.
“Basically, that person never saw the report, never saw the call, he never saw the call — heard something and decided that he or she, or whoever the hell they saw … almost a spy,” Mr. Trump said behind closed doors.
“I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy,” he said. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
The comments caused a firestorm online, with some wondering if Mr. Trump was joking about executing the people responsible for the complaint.
Details of the complaint were released early Thursday in a letter to the intelligence committee chairmen on Capitol Hill.
The whistleblower’s complaint accurately summarized the July 25 call Mr. Trump held with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and raised concerns that Mr. Trump was leveraging the presidency for personal gain.
Primarily, it focused on the president’s decision to bring up a possible probe into former Vice President Joseph R. Biden and his son Hunter.
The complaint also detailed efforts by Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to gather dirt on U.S. Democrats from Ukrainian officials, though the whistleblower — a non-White House official — gleaned most of the details secondhand amid inter-agency work.
The whistleblower alleged that White House officials moved to “lock down” the contents of Mr. Trump’s phone conversation with Mr. Zelensky, which seemed to suggest they understood the “gravity of what had transpired in the call,” according to the complaint.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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