Newly declassified documents prove that the first impeachment of President Donald Trump in 2019-2020 was a carefully orchestrated fraud.

It all was concocted by Trump-hating "deep state actors" within the intelligence community who secretly conspired with Democrats in Congress to remove Trump from office and subvert the will of the American people who had put him there.

The damning evidence was produced Monday, April 13 by Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. On Wednesday, she sent criminal referrals to the Department of Justice (DOJ) aimed at two of the central figures who propelled the impeachment proceedings, accusing them of manufacturing a conspiracy.

The first is Michael Atkinson, who served as the inspector general (IG) of the Intelligence Community at the time of the impeachment hearings, and the whistleblower who filed a formal complaint about Trump’s July 2019 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The identity of the whistleblower — a CIA analyst and registered Democrat — has still not been officially disclosed, which is utterly absurd. He is not entitled to hide in the shadows of anonymity. By law, only the IG can decline to release his name. But this applies to no one else. Gabbard should identify him, particularly since he no longer works in intelligence.

Moreover, the so-called "whistleblower" was not a whistleblower at all, as I explained repeatedly in a series of columns seven years ago during Trump’s impeachment. The complaint he filed against the president never qualified as a valid complaint under the whistleblower statute. It does not meet the two requisite conditions set forth in the law.

That is, the alleged wrongful conduct must involve intelligence activity, and it must be committed by a member of the intelligence community. The president is not a member of the intelligence community and never has been. Under Article II of the Constitution, the chief executive has sweeping authority to conduct foreign affairs, negotiate with leaders of other nations and make requests or solicit information.

That is precisely what Trump did in his conversation with Zelenskyy. He suggested that the leader examine Hunter Biden’s ridiculously lucrative business deals with the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, as well as later-President Joe Biden’s on-camera brag in which he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds unless the Ukraine prosecutor investigating both Burisma and Hunter Biden was fired. It appeared to be an overt and corrupt "quid pro quo" to protect his son and keep the Biden family’s financial gravy train chugging along.

It also smacked of extortion.

There was nothing inappropriate about Trump’s phone discussion, since the younger Biden was already the subject of a DOJ criminal probe into his highly suspicious international business schemes. Trump’s request was logical and not at all uncommon. Other presidents have done the same thing.

Our Justice Department has enlisted foreign help in numerous cases over the years. Presidents sometimes get involved. It was ludicrous for Democrats to declare that the conversation was an impeachable offense. Yet, they did so zealously.

They knowingly exploited a faux whistleblower who had no firsthand knowledge whatsoever of the phone conversation. He neither listened in nor read a transcript of it. He simply heard about it from someone else. The Constitution does not grant the power of review or disapproval to unelected and inferior bureaucratic employees over the most superior officer in the U.S. government, the president.

Again, I wrote about this as the impeachment saga unfolded in 2019:

So what should we call the fake "whistleblower"? It is more accurate to describe him as an undercover informant acting as a Democratic operative who spied on President Trump by gathering hearsay information intended to damage him.

Moreover, there is increasing evidence that the informant was aided and abetted by none other than Schiff and/or Schiff’s staff to invent a pretext for the impeachment of the president."

Sure enough, Gabbard’s never-before-seen documents confirm it. The pretend whistleblower eventually admitted that he was a partisan who "worked closely with Vice President Biden" and "travelled with Biden to Ukraine." In other words, when Trump became president, the analyst appears to have embedded as an adversarial "mole" and became instrumental in triggering the fraudulent impeachment.

Equally shocking is the alleged role played by Atkinson, who was supposed to remain a fair and neutral inspector general. Yet, records show that he vouched for the credibility of the fake whistleblower, knowing full well that he had submitted false information in his complaint. "I also want to make it clear that I never considered the whistleblower to be politically biased," he said during testimony.

Atkinson had a duty to toss the garbage complaint in the nearest trash receptacle. The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel pronounced it so deficient that Congress should not be notified. Instead, the IG did the opposite. He labeled the complaint an "urgent concern" when it was not and leveraged it as a cudgel against Trump, pushing it forward aggressively toward impeachment.

Even worse, exculpatory evidence that would have benefited Trump was deliberately withheld from Congress, the American people and the president’s impeachment defense team. It was hidden under the marking of "classified." No one was ever told of the CIA analyst’s acute bias, political motivations, or his critical confession that "I do not have direct knowledge of private comments or communications by the President."

Then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Democrat Adam Schiff knew all about the exonerating evidence but concealed it. On the sly, the analyst coordinated with Schiff’s staff before the whistleblower complaint was ever filed. Trump was being set up.

Publicly, Schiff insisted that he never knew the man’s name and "we have not spoken directly to the whistleblower."

When that was exposed as untrue, Schiff tried to walk it back. Documents show the analyst also lied to Atkinson. He later apologized for peddling the same deceit as Schiff. Amazingly, the apology itself was covered up.

Gabbard has accused Atkinson of ignoring DOJ guidance, exceeding his statutory jurisdiction and weaponizing the established whistleblower process. "Inspector General Atkinson failed to uphold his responsibility to the American people, putting political motivations over the truth."

The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the newly declassified documents is that Trump was framed. Elements within the intelligence community, including Atkinson and the sham whistleblower, engineered a conspiracy that was used as the basis to impeach President Trump, said Gabbard.

Democrats like Schiff knew it was entirely bogus but didn’t care. Their goal, as it always has been, was to destroy Trump and drive him from office.

Now that the pernicious lies have unraveled, what happens next?

The Department of Justice, relying on Gabbard’s criminal referral, must undertake a thorough investigation. Potential charges could include false statements, perjury, obstruction and conspiracy to defraud the government. Those who conjured up a phony impeachment should be held accountable in a court of law.

Trump, of course, survived the impeachment ordeal. History books should be faithful to the truth and call it a farce.