……Source 1 said, “Just days after he [Trump] was sworn in, they [Ciaramella and Misko] were already talking about trying to get rid of him. They weren’t just bent on subverting his agenda. They were plotting to actually have him removed from office.”
Sources told Sperry that Misko had been the Schiff staff member whom Ciaramella had “reached out to” for “guidance” before submitting his complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson.
Sperry writes:
The coordination between the official believed to be the whistleblower and a key Democratic staffer, details of which are disclosed here for the first time, undercuts the narrative that impeachment developed spontaneously out of the “patriotism” of an “apolitical civil servant.”
Two former co-workers said they overheard Ciaramella and Misko, close friends and Democrats held over from the Obama administration, discussing how to “take out,” or remove, the new president from office within days of Trump’s inauguration. These co-workers said the president’s controversial Ukraine phone call in July 2019 provided the pretext they and their Democratic allies had been looking for.
[….]
Source 1 said, “They were popping off about how they were going to remove Trump from office. No joke.”
[….]
He had also heard Ciaramella tell Misko, “‘We can’t let him enact this foreign policy.’“
Source 2 said he reported what he’d overheard to his superiors. “It was so shocking that they were so blatant and outspoken about their opinion,” he recalled. “They weren’t shouting it, but they didn’t seem to feel the need to hide it.”
The co-workers, [sources 1 and 2] didn’t think much more about the incident…..