I reflect on my own experience as a White House whistleblower. I vividly recall the enormous feeling of helplessness coupled with something far more powerful. It was the sense of physically being compelled to act, that the element of choice had been stripped away. It was enough to put everything on the line. And it is something all bona fide whistleblowers have in common. It’s a lonely place to be, a frightening place, too.

Yet today’s White House whistleblower has had a different experience from all the rest. Allies appear to have been lined up to assist, the skids were greased to move forward, the premise for blowing the whistle at all a concocted and rather flimsy one. It strains credulity already and the story has not yet been fully told.

I fear we stand on a precipice today. I fear the loss of credibility for future whistleblowers all based on what we see today. With a created situation that, among other things, could endanger the already shaky and somewhat begrudging respect people may finally have for bona fide whistleblowers. The cause stands to be set back decades. It is one of the reasons why we must pay close attention to how today’s situation actually came to be.

With all this in mind, I understand better than many how critical a role courageous whistleblowers play, whether in the private or the public sector. I enthusiastically support those hard fought protections we now have in place. Protections for those who would risk everything to expose malfeasance, among other things, have been long coming. Bona fide whistleblowers deserve to be heard. To be protected against retaliation. To emerge whole on the other side.

But in this unprecedented hyper partisan world in which we now find ourselves, other heretofore unheard of possibilities begin to rear their ugly heads . And we must face, however reluctantly, that a political operative with a partisan agenda, in fact, possibly a card carrying coup member, can also be cloaked in the federal protections provided to whistleblowers. And shouldn’t be.

At its core, it’s all about patterns. Beginning on Election day November 2016 an attempt at a soft coup d’état began in earnest. But it actually began long before. Startling and unprecedented, this orchestrated endeavor was both systematic and systemic. The media and the Democrats (I repeat myself) have worked tirelessly toward this end hand in hand with the very real “Deep State”. In a burst of Hillary’s favorite method, they used the politics of personal destruction to attempt to destroy Trump. And the pattern began.

The calls for impeachment began before he even finished his oath of office. It has continued every single day since. Not a day has gone by where some Democrat or talking head hasn’t called for impeachment. As unprecedented as this is, this pattern continues unabated to this day.

Many will remember Chuck Schumer saying in a televised interview, “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” This troubling pattern was established early on. And at the highest levels of our government. Blinded by partisan politics, they would put all their considerable efforts into removing this president.

Now close to three years later, into this fray steps a “whistleblower”. One of the six ways from Sunday, Mr. President.

Keep in mind that this pattern is the one that gives me pause. As a former federal whistleblower, it is deeply troubling. It’s the pattern that has taken all we hold sacred and turned it on its ear. It’s the former director of the FBI and the former heads of the intelligence agencies under President Obama who have literally lied publicly on the record to advance their Third World overthrow of a duly elected president.

They’ve adopted the old “throw everything at the wall to see what sticks” game plan, with the fervent hope that finally they’d get President Trump and get him good. Valiant efforts aside, it just has not worked. Highly placed public officials and elected officials are willing to check their integrity at the door in a misguided attempt to fix an election that they are convinced went so wildly wrong.

We all know the movie. It was Russia. They told us so. From the very day he had the temerity to take office, President Trump was an agent of Putin. He colluded with the Russians to rig an election. He obstructed justice. He endangered national security. He was an existential threat to our democracy. And as the world recently watched, Hillary Clinton herself stated that he was an illegitimate president. Let those words sink in.

The world also watched as Rep. Adam Schiff, the grandeur and gravitas of

Capitol Hill as his backdrop, publicly stated that he had seen “proof” of Trump’s Russian collusion. Proof.

The president has been accused of everything from being a racist to being an anti-Semite. He has been held up to public ridicule and attacked from all sides. His nominees were by extension put through the wringer in an attempt to discredit Trump and to keep him from achieving any success in office. The shameful circus that was the Kavanaugh nomination attests to the lengths they would go to undermine this president. And in the end, and to date, none of the inquiries, investigations, accusations have proven anything other than the unadulterated hatred of the people behind the playbook.

It has been the single most all consuming issue for the democrats since 2016. Legislation fell by the wayside because nothing, repeat nothing, was as important as removing this president. The six congressional committees working solely on impeachment should make that abundantly clear.

And behind the scenes, mere steps from the White House, James Comey and his trusty cohorts on the lofty executive floor of the FBI building worked zealously before the election to ensure Trump’s opponent won. And after the election they worked just as hard to find a way to remove Trump from office. The pattern was developing but it would be months before the intricacy would be revealed for all the world to see.

Remember, it was Comey who leaked to his buddy to have his buddy leak to the media to prompt the appointment of a Special Counsel. No one disputes that. It worked.

Enter Robert Mueller. Another Jim Comey buddy of long standing. Years later, 45 million tax dollars later, a somewhat befuddled Bob Mueller and his trusty band of Hillary donors came up with a great big goose egg. And a great deal of egg on their faces. No collusion. No obstruction.

In any case, however you slice it, an exoneration was what it was. It was monumentally disappointing to them and even more crushing to the democrats and their buddies in the media, who had hung their many hats on a very different outcome. After all, they had all spent years assuring the American people that the Mueller Report would sink Trump’s ship for once and for all. Impeachment would be the reward. And still, despite repeated failures, they didn’t give up.

So how does the playbook continue? It appears they now have their ace in the hole.

Enter a bona fide, unassailable, federally protected “whistleblower”. Checkmate.

In light of the unmistakable pattern that emerged early on, we would do well to question that which would follow. It is so in the case of the “whistleblower.”

Consider this. Now we suspect this remarkably well protected “whistleblower” may be a CIA employee who was sent by partisans loyal to John Brennan. Mr. Brennan has been rather vocal since the inauguration of President Trump and we don’t have to guess where he stands on anything, least of all where it concerns this president. He has made it his life’s work to destroy Donald Trump. His reputation is riding on it. He was and is a vital component of the coup. Watch the pattern. It should be troubling to all of us.

Let’s look back. “Death by a thousand knives” was the well-oiled plan, and it was an orchestrated strategy. Talking points in hand, time after time, this cabal worked valiantly to find grounds, any grounds, to unseat a duly elected president. They stopped and will stop at nothing. Their pattern became a playbook.

I believe the possibility exists that our yet to be identified “whistleblower” may well be a part of this playbook. A fox in sheep’s clothing, so to speak.

In our zeal to protect a “whistleblower,” it is also our responsibility to ensure that in the process, the statute is not bastardized. It means a deep dive into both sides. A deeper look at possible partisan collusion, motivation, connections, into who placed this individual in this position, to determine whether this seemingly altruistic person is coming forward as a patriot or as a partisan. Based on all that has come before, and as horrifying as it may be, I would not be surprised to learn that the dirty hands of highly placed elected officials are behind this “whistleblower.”

Because when it concerns this president, the pattern cannot be ignored. Based on everything that came before, it is reasonable to question if all is actually as it might seem.

As an impeachment inquiry looms, and as this movie plays on, we would do well to pay close attention. To question where we are today by reviewing what came before. If nothing else, question the pattern. Because in the end, it might be important to consider an old saying I’ve always liked. A rose by any other name, they say, is still a rose. In this case, it’s quite possible that a rat is still a rat.