Rand Paul outs alleged Ukraine whistleblower on Senate floor after John Roberts tried to stop him

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the name of the alleged Ukraine whistleblower on the Senate floor Tuesday as senators debated whether to remove President Donald Trump from office.  Paul tried to submit a question naming the individual to Supreme Court Justice John Roberts last week, but the Republican appointee refused to read it aloud.Advertisement:  "I think they made a big mistake not allowing my question. My question did not accuse anybody of being a whistleblower," Paul claimed during his speech Tuesday before reading the name of a CIA analyst alleged to be the whistleblower in conservative media. Paul also displayed the name on a poster board showing the question he submitted to Roberts.  The question was whether Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and his staff were in contact with the whistleblower whose complaint led to Trump's impeachment. Salon has not verified the identity of the whistleblower and is not sharing the name circulated by conservative outlets and Russian media.  Paul alleged that the committee and the whistleblower were working together "to plot impeaching the president before there were formal House impeachment proceedings." Advertisement:  Roberts was seen pausing to read the question last week before refusing to do so.  "The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted," Roberts said.  Paul insisted during a press conference after Roberts' decision that the question naming the alleged whistleblower made "no reference to anybody who may or may not be a whistleblower."Advertisement:  Paul later claimed to CNN's Manu Raju that Roberts was the one who had actually outed the individual.  "I would say the chief justice did that. By not allowing the question, he's sort of confirming to the public who it is. I have no idea who it is," he claimed. "I think it's very important that we know if there was a concerted government plot to bring the president down by a lot of employees."Advertisement:  Paul also argued that his Republican Senate colleagues, none of whom have named the individual, and Roberts were making selective use of whistleblower protections and the Privacy Act.  "A statue shouldn't be such that people can use — and then nobody says they know who the person is," he said. "But anybody you say might be is all the sudden protected from being part of the debate."  Paul previously shared an article naming the alleged whistleblower on Twitter and demanded that the media out the individual during a Trump rally last year.Advertisement:  Republicans repeatedly used the impeachment proceedings to try to get the name of the whistleblower on record in closed-door depositions and during public hearings.  Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, who serves on the Judiciary Committee, blurted the alleged whistleblower's name during a televised impeachment hearing after also dropping the name in a completely unrelated hearing on Puerto Rico.  President Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. both shared articles naming the

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