Ukraine whistleblower has never worked for a political candidate: Lawyers rebut Trump team's attacks

On Wednesday, Axios reported that attorneys representing the intelligence community whistleblower at the heart of the Ukraine scandal are pushing back on a key line of attack from President Donald Trump's defenders: that the whistleblower is somehow a politically connected person out for revenge on Trump.

This pushback comes after reporting that the whistleblower had "some type of professional relationship" with one of the Democratic candidates for president.

The whistleblower, they wrote, did indeed work with one of the candidates, but not in a political capacity, and has "come into contact with presidential candidates from both parties in their roles as elected officials – not as candidates."

They added that the whistleblower "voluntarily provided relevant career information" to the intelligence community inspector general and that the complaint was found to be "urgent and credible."

"[T]he whistleblower is not the story," they wrote. "To date, virtually every substantive allegation has been confirmed by other sources. For that reason the identity of the whistleblower is irrelevant."