Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she has warned President Trump that he’s in her “wheelhouse” when he attempts to “intimidate” a government whistleblower who helped spark the House impeachment inquiry. 

“I will make sure he does not intimidate the whistleblower,” Pelosi said in an interview airing on CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday morning. “I told the president you’re in my wheelhouse when you come after the whistleblower.”

{mosads}A whistleblower complaint accusing Trump of seeking to get Ukraine to open investigations into 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden led Pelosi to announce a formal impeachment inquiry in late September. In the subsequent weeks, Trump has repeatedly questioned the whistleblower’s credibility and pushed for the disclosure of their name. 

Earlier this month, he called on the media to disseminate the whistleblower’s identity. The figure’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to the White House just days later asking Trump to stop attacking their client. 

Pelosi in the CBS interview stressed how important it was for lawmakers to protect the whistleblower’s identity. 

“This is really important, especially when it comes to intelligence, that someone who would be courageous enough to point out truth to power and then through the filter of a Trump-appointed inspector general who found it of urgent concern and then took it to the next steps,” she said, adding that Trump will have every opportunity to present his case amid the inquiry. 

“The president could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the truth that he wants if he wants,” Pelosi continued, referencing complaints from Trump and some Republicans that the impeachment process has been conducted unfairly. “He has every opportunity to present his case.”

Pelosi also argued that Trump’s alleged crimes were worse than those of former President Nixon, who resigned before the House voted on articles of impeachment. 

“It’s really a sad thing. I mean, what the president did was so much worse than even what Richard Nixon did,” she said, echoing remarks she made last week. 

The House’s impeachment inquiry is centered around allegations that Trump pushed Ukraine to open political investigations and that he used millions of dollars in military aid as leverage in the negotiations. 

The House Intelligence Committee last week heard public depositions from three current and former administration officials as part of the probe.