Can someone please tell Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer that no, the anonymity of the “whistleblower” in the Ukraine controversy is not “protected by law.”

It’s not. At best, it’s an open question unsettled by any policy or court ruling. But it’s certainly not a matter of settled law.

Schumer nonetheless proceeded to push that lie in a letter he sent Monday to the acting national intelligence director and the intelligence community inspector general.

“I am writing to ask what specific steps you are taking to protect the security of the intelligence community whistleblower,” wrote Schumer. It later continued to say that President Trump had “incorrectly stated that he has a right to ‘confront’ the whistleblower, and has said that he is ‘trying to find out’ the whistleblower’s identity — notwithstanding the fact that the whistleblower anonymity is protected by law.”

I don’t know why Schumer’s letter has the word “confront” in quotes, given that Trump does not appear to have ever used it. (He has said “meet my accuser.”) But in any event, it’s a misconception that there’s any law protecting the anonymity of any career government employee who decides to accuse the president of abusing his power.

The Whistleblower Protection Act and the later changes that enhanced it do nothing more than shield a federal employee from demotion, termination, or disciplinary action by superiors if he discloses information about waste and abuse or a violation of law within the government. (I'll use the pronoun “he” because the New York Times knows who it is and has done the same thing.)

Even the lawyer representing the guy who complained about Trump’s call to Ukraine has admitted that the protections he has amount to little more than prayer. “If [Trump] wants to destroy this person’s life,” attorney Bradley P. Moss told the Washington Post in a late September report, “there’s not a lot to stop him right now.”

In that same report, Moss conceded that “a lot of the protections that we understand to exist are based more on courtesy and custom than anything written down in law.”

Schumer and other Democrats are either desperately uninformed or are lying when they say that the identity of any “whistleblower” is protected by law. Hopefully, this case provides every reason why that isn't so.

We have to know the identity of this person who went to congressional Democrats with a complaint that has started a partisan impeachment effort. Yes, the content of his complaint is relevant. But so far as any reasonable person can tell, it's only political.

That’s why we ought to know his name. Once we do (and we will, it's just a matter of time) we can remove all doubt that this is a partisan witch hunt.