DES MOINES, IOWA—Even from this distance, and even over the radio of a rented car, Chief Justice John Roberts sounded more alive than he had sounded at any time in the past several weeks—except, I guess, when leading the Supreme Court into essentially validating the immigration policy once used by this country against Jews fleeing Hitler in the 1930s. For two days, he had been the leading celebrant in a kind of secular ritual. Senators would ask for recognition, announce that they had a question for one side of the impeachment trial or another—or occasionally, both of them—and Roberts would read the question. Like so much of parliamentary procedure, the process looked like an elaborate variation on “Mother, May I?”

Then Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, rose on Thursday and sent his question to Roberts. The Chief Justice read it, appeared to raise at least one eyebrow, and then said:

The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted.

Given Roberts’s demeanor during the trial, this was the equivalent of having the Chief throw a brick down the aisle at Senator Aqua Buddha. (If Paul thought Roberts, who had warned against this very ploy on Wednesday, was going to take this obvious hunk of bait, he’s guilty of an act of towering intellectual hubris. I have big problems with a lot of Roberts’s career and a huge percentage of his rulings, but, in a brain-off, I’ll take him against a self-accredited ophthalmologist.) Amazingly, Paul left the chamber and almost immediately called a press gaggle to take issue with what Roberts had done. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Paul immediately left the Senate floor and headed to a hastily-arranged press conference in a packed studio one floor above the chamber, where he read his question out loud himself and disparaged Roberts’ “incorrect finding.”

In other words, Paul outed someone he thinks was the whistleblower to the press and public after Roberts specifically refused to do so in the Senate chamber. This takes big clanging brass ones. Also amazingly, some of Paul’s colleagues, including Iowa’s own Senator Joni Ernst, lined up with him.

“I think that all questions need to be considered by the body and hear those answers,” [Ernst] said, “and if a senator is presenting a question, I think we should be able to hear the answer to that.”

Rand Paul: what a guy. MANDEL NGAN Getty Images

“I think every senator should have the right to ask the question in the manner in which they should ask it,” agreed Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., one of Trump’s designated House surrogates for the impeachment trial who is also one of the president’s closest congressional allies...Though Democratic lawmakers insist they don’t know know who the whistleblower is, many Republicans believe the identity is known by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the California Democrat serving as the lead House impeachment manager.

“I think, for all of us to suggest that we have no idea who the whistleblower is — listen, we all know who the whistleblower is,” said Meadows. Paul, who has previously demanded to know the identity the whistleblower whose name has been floated in some conservative media, insisted he was not naming the whistleblower on Thursday.

“It’s not about the whistleblower,” Paul continued. “It’s about two people who were friends, who worked together in the National Security Council, who were overheard talking about impeaching the president years in advance of a process that was created to get the impeachment going...To find out more about that, we can’t exclude them from testimony or from evidence. So I thought it was very important we were bringing forth this discussion,” he said.

Paul is referencing a piece by Paul Sperry, a longtime rightwing columnist who’s been pounding the Deep State sabotage tin drum for two years now. Sperry also throws around a name that has come up in various wingnut circles as being the whistleblower. The whistleblower, whoever he or she is, is now in more danger than was the case when he first came forward anonymously. A good portion of the United States Senate apparently doesn’t care whether he lives or dies. The peril becomes even greater when you factor in the Republicans in the House, and the reckless gnomes of the conservative media.

Once this trial ends, and if it ends in the expected acquittal, the president* is even-money to mention the whistleblower’s name at his rallies from now until the end of the campaign. They simply do not care, any of them.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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