Liberals have mostly stopped repeating the lie that the career government bureaucrat, sometimes lovingly referred to as the impeachment’s “whistleblower,” has a right to anonymity. That's because it’s now taken for granted that he won’t be needed in the upcoming Senate trial.

But that's wrong. His identity is, in fact, crucial to understanding exactly how and why President Trump’s conversation with a foreign leader, during which nothing criminal took place, became public and kicked off an attempted removal of the president.

The House hearings have already gone over all of the substance of the phone call, why Ukraine matters, why Trump delayed the military aid, and why Joe Biden and his adult son Hunter were involved. But now we need to know how we got here and why a CIA analyst, who had no first-hand information about the phone call, felt it was his place to run to House Democrats with gossip that he must have figured would get the impeachment ball rolling.

Everyone in Washington and everyone on social media is identifying the “whistleblower” as Eric Ciaramella, who couldn’t be more of what you’d expect from an entitled government employee in Washington. He comes from an elite educational background, is a registered Democrat, and, according to the intelligence community inspector general, harbors a “political bias” in favor of a “rival political candidate” of Trump’s. That candidate is almost certainly Joe Biden.

Neither Ciaramella nor the lawyers for the “whistleblower” have denied that it’s him, so Senate Republicans should assume it is, and they should make him testify. If he declines, they should force him with a subpoena. If he attempts to slow things down by taking it to court, Republicans should just wait it out.

Democrats have already committed to vote on impeachment. So this is no longer about whether to impeach, it’s about exposing the impeachment as a sham.

Ciaramella's testimony will be key to doing that.