Tom Nichols

Opinion columnist

We now know that The New York Times has reported that the government official who blew the whistle on President Donald Trump’s attempts to use a foreign government for his own corrupt purposes was a member of the CIA who was detailed to the White House. We should not know this, because in a matter of days or perhaps hours — maybe even by the time you read this — we will probably know the man’s name and everything else about him.

This is a problem, because there are people who want to do harm to this whistleblower and his colleagues. Prominent among them is the president of the United States himself, who has already said that he would like to know the identities of those who have placed him in jeopardy (or, in yet more jeopardy) of impeachment. Indeed, Trump thinks the whistleblower should be dealt with as an enemy spy and a traitor to the state.

In his usual emulation of the mob bosses and dictators he admires, the president said: “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. 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.”

He means the death penalty, of course.

This is the same president who thought he could mend fences with the intelligence community at the start of his term by giving a speech at the most sacred place at the CIA, in front of the wall of unmarked stars that commemorate American intelligence professionals who gave their lives in the course of their duties. As usual, Trump couldn’t help himself, and instead of showing respect to the people who died in anonymity to protect the nation, he talked about his favorite subject: himself.

CIA officer trying to do his job

This time, a CIA officer is trying to protect his nation by warning his superiors of a danger emanating from the Oval Office itself. This was not some rogue nitwit stuffing classified material in her pantyhose like Reality Winner, or a self-important stooge like Edward Snowden collaborating with our avowed enemies overseas. This is an intelligence community professional who, as Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph McGuire confirmed repeatedly to the House Intelligence Committee, went through all the proper channels and observed every legal necessity to alert his colleagues that the president was trying to muscle an American friend under attack by Russia into doing his personal bidding.

The whistleblower’s reward for observing proper procedure has been a chorus of orchestrated Republican talking points aimed at discrediting him and his motives. The message from the GOP is clear to this and any other whistleblower who might ever threaten a Republican president: Cross our Dear Leader, and we will destroy you. Such is the patriotism of a party that is now nothing more than a seedy cult of personality. Even Sen. Mitt Romney — not exactly a tower of courage himself these days — said recently about the Republicans trying to avert their eyes from Trump’s misdeeds: “I think it's very natural for people to look at circumstances and see them in the light that's most amenable to their maintaining power, and doing things to preserve that power.”

Trump’s apologists will wave away his comments (including his reference to journalists as “scum”) as just another meaningless example of the president’s swaggering New York style of verbal venting. It might be acceptable for a rich kid from Queens to talk like a sociopathic mobster or beetle-browed junta enforcer when he’s trying to bully the local stonemasons and carpenters on his latest slapdash condo project, but it is utterly unacceptable in a president of the United States. The House Judiciary Committee should add this threat against a CIA officer to its list of impeachable offenses.

Trump’s unhinged rhetoric has inspired unstable people to take matters into their own hands, including one who is now in prison for sending bombs. The president must be called to account for his abuses of power sooner rather than later, but every decent American left in public life must immediately demand that he stop any further attacks on this whistleblower, before it’s too late and there’s another star on the wall at Langley.

Tom Nichols is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and author of "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters." Follow him on Twitter: @RadioFreeTom