Trump Tweets Out Clip of Mark Levin Repeatedly (and Inaccurately) Referring to the Whistleblower as a CIA Agent
President Donald Trump tweeted out a clip of Fox News host Mark Levin getting heated about the whistleblower, whom he erroneously referred to as a “CIA agent” at multiple points.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2019
The six-minute clip comes from Levin’s appearance on Hannity, where he called Democratic lawmakers and the media “drug addicts looking for their next fix.”
“I can tell you that a CIA agent who is a policy guy for Ukraine can’t write something like this,” Levin said, speculating he was helped by a law firm.
Journalist Yashar Ali noted that Levin was interchanging the jobs “CIA agent” and “CIA officer” – which have different roles in intelligence gathering.
Mark Levin, who notes he’s an attorney (he was chief of staff to AG Edwin Meese) repeatedly refers to the CIA Officer who is alleged to be the whistleblower as a “CIA Agent”
Huge difference between the two.
This is like the brown M&M test, what else is Levin getting wrong? https://t.co/9coz01JImv
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) September 27, 2019
Ali went on to note that people were accusing him of “nitpicking.”
My *favorite* thing about this tweet is the same conservatives who are happy to have me jump on liberals who make this mistake will now accuse me of nitpicking. And liberals who accuse me of nitpicking against msnbc hosts & members of Congress will jump on this
I hate this app https://t.co/E8iIC5IFQh
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) September 27, 2019
Generally speaking, a CIA agent is someone recruited by the CIA for their influence or access to intelligence and their role is to gather intelligence. A CIA officer/analyst is responsible for receiving and interpreting intelligence and forming it into coherent and useful information.
The previous reporting suggests the anonymous whistleblower is a CIA analyst specializing in European and Ukrainian foreign affairs who was assigned to the White House at some point.
[Image via screengrab]
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