The attorneys representing the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower are navigating a terrain fraught with serious risks to their client, which could bring career risks and criminal liability if they do not strictly adhere to whistleblower guidelines.

This is why keeping the whistleblower's name a secret is paramount as counsel continue negotiations for Congress to secure the person's testimony in potential impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. The whistleblower alleged that Trump suggested he would withhold government aid to Ukraine unless the country's president did Trump a "favor" of investigating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

"All agree protecting [the] whistleblower's identity is paramount," said a tweet by Mark Zaid, one of the attorneys representing the whistleblower.

Tom Devine, legal director of Government Accountability Project in Washington, D.C. Courtesy photo.

History shows that government whistleblowers, especially those who disclose national security information when revealing government malfeasance, often land in prison unless they have competent counsel to help them make their disclosures using the exact right legal procedures. Even the whistleblowers who do everything right often face retaliation at work, and in the end, they could lose their careers in the intelligence community, attorneys say.

"The lesson I've learned from doing this so long is the more significant the threat to abuses of power, and the more powerful the abuser, the uglier and more intense the retaliation. This whistleblower couldn't have picked a bigger target, or a target that has been more ruthless in trying to destroy anyone who threatens him," said Tom Devine, who's represented about 1,000 whistleblowers as legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that assists whistleblowers.

Criminal consequences

Whistleblowers who don't consult an attorney before making a disclosure are certain to take the wrong path and land in trouble, said Zaid, who's representing the Ukraine whistleblower alongside Andrew Bakaj and Charles "Chuck" McCullough, both of Compass Rose Legal Group. He said the Ukraine whistleblower did follow the right path, and shouldn't face criminal liability.

Mark Zaid, Managing partner in Mark S. Zaid in Washington, D.C.

Because others didn't follow the legal procedure, Zaid said, he doesn't think the "whistleblower" moniker should go to people like Reality Winner, who's serving five years in prison for leaking classified documents to the media about Russian hacking in the 2016 election, and Chelsea Manning, who was convicted after giving a treasure trove of classified records to WikiLeaks.

"You can't be a whistleblower if you are criminally leaking classified information, as a matter of law. You have no protection whatsoever," said Zaid, managing partner in Mark S. Zaid in Washington, D.C.

When a government whistleblower does face criminal charges, attorneys face extraordinary hurdles to defend the case, according to Atlanta solo practitioner Titus Nichols, one of the criminal-defense attorneys for Winner.

Discovery was difficult because the government argued that certain documents were classified and couldn't be released to defense counsel, he noted. Widespread publicity of the case also made the defense difficult.

"Everything we did was scrutinized by the media and government prosecuting my client," Nichols said. "We were very, very careful to stay within the specified guidelines in terms of communications among the legal team, and discussions with the media."