President Trump continued to attack a government official who blew the whistle on his interactions with Ukraine as unreliable and potentially partisan on Friday, one day after he alluded to harsh, old-time punishments for people who commit “treason.”

Mr. Trump tweeted, without evidence, that the whistleblower appeared to launch a political hit job instead of acting out of patriotic concern. The president also scoffed at the “secondhand” information in the complaint, which was made public on Thursday.

“Sounding more and more like the so-called Whistleblower isn’t a Whistleblower at all,” he tweeted. “In addition, all second hand information that proved to be so inaccurate that there may not have even been somebody else, a leaker or spy, feeding it to him or her? A partisan operative?”

Although the whistleblower’s identity is unknown to the public, a New York Times report identified the person as a male CIA employee who’d been detailed to the White House for a time.

The report says the official has a sophisticated understanding of U.S. relations with Ukraine.

Democrats, who are pursuing impeachment over the episode, say the whistleblower must be protected, especially after Mr. Trump made references to “spies” and “treason” in an address to the U.N. delegation in New York on Thursday.

They also dismissed Mr. Trump’s theories.

“Having a bad day? (Week?),” Rep. Mark Pocan, Wisconsin Democrat, tweeted back at the president.

In the complaint, the whistleblower admits that the information is largely secondhand, though cites multiple officials as verifying accounts.

The complaint also accurately summarized a July 25 phone call between Mr. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A memorandum on the call, essentially a rough transcript, was released to the public earlier this week.

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