The Democrats' impeachment show just keeps getting less and less credible, and more and more disgusting.

The latest is from Byron York at the Washington Examiner, who reports that the so-called "whistleblower" had a "professional relationship" with an unnamed Democratic Party presidential candidate:

Under questioning from Republicans during last Friday's impeachment inquiry interview with [Michael] Atkinson, the [intelligence community's] inspector general revealed that the whistleblower's possible bias was not that he was simply a registered Democrat. It was that he had a significant tie to one of the Democratic presidential candidates currently vying to challenge President Trump in next year's election. "The IG said [the whistleblower] worked or had some type of professional relationship with one of the Democratic candidates," said one person with knowledge of what was said. "The IG said the whistleblower had a professional relationship with one of the 2020 candidates," said another person with knowledge of what was said. "What [Atkinson] said was that the whistleblower self-disclosed that he was a registered Democrat and that he had a prior working relationship with a current 2020 Democratic presidential candidate," said a third person with knowledge of what was said. All three sources said Atkinson did not identify the Democratic candidate with whom the whistleblower had a connection. It is unclear what the working or professional relationship between the two was.

This kind of throws shade on the idea that this queasily unconventional use of the whistleblower statute to declare President Trump a danger to national security — and impeach him — was anything other than a partisan stunt.

Who the heck was this Democrat, and why shouldn't the public know what this game is? The public has a right to know that, if for no other reason than because the conflicts of interest are now piling up.

It's not just a partisan stunt because of this previous "professional relationship" with some Democratic rival of Trump's, as the latest revelation signals.

It comes on top of the mysterious IGIC rules change that enabled the whistleblower complaint with zero firsthand information to be filed at all. And as if that isn't enough, there also was the revelation that the whistleblower, in contravention of the whistleblower rules, coordinated meetings with House Intelligence Committee staff of hyper-partisan Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff first before filing.

That's three strikes.

The whole thing now has shades of the Russia-Russia-Russia collusion investigation, which was premised on scurrilous Democratic Party opposition research, which is precisely what's not supposed to be used in actual criminal and counterintelligence investigations.

The conflicts of interest in this whistleblower case are stupendous, and this latest "professional relationship" news shows that the evidence is amassing.

It's a partisan put-up job, a miserable Wile-E-Coyote bid at this late, late date for Democrats to attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

Any questions as to why President Trump now says he won't cooperate with this farce investigation? He called it a kangaroo court in a recent tweet and beyond, and there's no better term for it.

He's right to keep away from it, because the revelations are now rolling out that this is a coup attempt from an embittered opposition.

For the sake of preserving our democratic system, good for him for giving this farce the contempt it deserves.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of image by Tom Childers via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, and public domain source.