Because of course he did

Donald Trump has retweeted material that publicly names the purported whistleblower whose complaint about the US president’s dealings with Ukraine led to his impeachment.

The president on Friday night sent a retweet from one of his supporters containing the alleged name of the individual. Trump drew the attention of his 68 million Twitter followers to the post which, along with publicising the name, inaccurately claimed that the whistleblower “committed perjury by making false statements” and is being protected by Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee. There is no evidence to support these assertions.

Earlier, on Thursday, Trump had also retweeted a post by his re-election campaign’s “war room” that linked to an article by the conservative Washington Examiner news website. The article, published on 3 December, has the name of the alleged whistleblower in its headline.

  The Guardian

Vicious.

Trump’s retweet quickly drew sharp criticism.

But not from Republicans, right?

Amy Siskind, president of the New Agenda, a nonpartisan advocacy organisation, posted on Friday: “This is not acceptable behavior from the so-called leader of our country, and he must be called to task for it!”

I'd like to know what of his behavior IS acceptable from a US president.

[The whistleblower] has become something of a rightwing obsession. Their alleged name and photograph have been circulating in conservative media for months. Despite whistleblower protection laws, they have to be driven to work by security detail to protect their safety.

The president was following in the footsteps of his own son, Donald Trump Jr, who last month tweeted an article that contained the name and was then grilled about it on the TV talk show The View. Trump Jr claimed he was a “private citizen” sharing information on social media.

So what?

The show’s hosts argued this was disingenuous considering that he is the president’s son.

And I'm also a private citizen sharing information on social media, but I don't publicize the alleged whistleblower's name.

Last month the Guardian asked him if he was thinking about tweeting out the name of the whistleblower.

The president replied: “Well, I’ll tell you what. There have been stories written about a certain individual – a male – and they say he’s the whistleblower.”

Trump went on to claim, without evidence, that the whistleblower is linked to John Brennan, the former director of the CIA, and Susan Rice, the ex-national security adviser. “If he’s the whistleblower, he has no credibility because he’s a Brennan guy, he’s a Susan Rice guy, he’s an Obama guy, and he hates Trump, and he’s a radical. Now, maybe it’s not him. But if it’s him, you guys ought to release the information.”

Trump has made several more appeals for the media to out the whistleblower, amplified by Republican allies in in Congress, who allege the person is a Democrat pursuing a vendetta. At a Trump rally in Kentucky, the US senator Rand Paul urged reporters: “Do your job and print his name!” Trump applauded.

The vendetta is Trump's. The whistleblower's identity is irrelevant. The facts of the claim are what matters, and they've been shown to be true.

The Daily Beast reported: “Several people close to the president, such as Ivanka Trump and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, had privately cautioned him against saying or posting the name in public, arguing it would be counterproductive and unnecessary.”

Legal experts disagree on whether identifying a whistleblower is a crime. Some argue the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 forbids retaliation against an employee for blowing the whistle on perceived wrongdoing but does not prevent a president or member of Congress from identifying a whistleblower.

That's retaliation.

With few public engagements, Trump, based at his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, has spent the Christmas period furiously tweeting and retweeting false claims and conspiracy theories related to Ukraine and impeachment.

And outing the whistleblower. And nasty-tweeting Democrats by name.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

The usual excuse for Trump’s online abusiveness—he’s counterpunching—amounts in this case not to a defense but to an indictment: Counterpunching literally means retaliating, and retaliation is what is forbidden by federal law.

[...]

Trump is organizing from the White House a conspiracy to revenge himself on the person who first alerted the country that Trump was extorting Ukraine to help his reelection: more lawbreaking to punish the revelation of past lawbreaking.

[...]

Donald Trump will not be bound by any rule, even after he has been caught. He is unrepentant and determined to break the rules again—in part by punishing those who try to enforce them. He is a president with the mind of a gangster, and as long as he is in office, he will head a gangster White House.

  The Atlantic