'Bro-like': Schiff aide was White House friend of alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella
Alleged Ukraine whistleblower Eric Ciaramella was close friends at the White House with an official who is now a key aide to Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman leading the Democratic push to impeach President Trump. Sean Misko, 37, was the director for the Gulf States at the National Security Council from 2015 until the first half of 2018. Ciaramella, 33, a career CIA analyst, was Ukraine director on the NSC from at least 2016 until the summer of 2017. Both officials arrived during the Obama administration and left during the Trump administration.
In September, the whistleblower accused Trump of abusing the presidency by asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. The complaint is now the focus of Democratic-led impeachment proceedings. Schiff initially denied he had any knowledge about the complaint prior to its filing in mid-August, saying on Sep. 17: “We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to." But it was later found that this statement was false and a member of his staff had spoken to the whistleblower before the complaint was filed on Aug. 12. Misko joined Schiff's staff in August 2019. Six months earlier, Schiff had hired Abigail Grace, another former NSC official who worked for both the Obama and Trump administrations. The Washington Examiner reported on Oct. 10 that the alleged whistleblower was on the NSC and worked with Biden. Ciaramella was a guest of Biden's at a State Department banquet. Before joining the NSC, Misko worked in the Obama administration as a member of the secretary of state’s policy planning staff for deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan, who became Hillary Clinton's senior foreign policy adviser during her 2016 presidential campaign. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bro-like-schiff-aide-was-white-house-friend-of-alleged-whistleblower-eric-ciaramella
