A potentially explosive complaint by a whistle-blower in the intelligence community said to involve President Trump emerged today as the latest front in a continuing oversight dispute between administration officials and House Democrats.
The complaint touched off speculation about its allegations, which remained shrouded in mystery.
It involves at least one instance of Trump making an unspecified commitment to a foreign leader and includes other actions, according to interviews.
At least part of the allegation deals with Ukraine, two people familiar with it said.
Two questions could be problematic for Trump: 1) Does this involve his former attorney Rudy Giuliani’s effort to dig up dirt on Biden family? 2) Is there a link to Trump slow walking arms to Ukraine on behalf of Vladimir Putin?
If Trump promised foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigating Biden’s son, that is obviously corrupt and should meet any definition of a “high crime” for impeachment.
The complaint involved communications with a foreign leader and a “promise” that Trump made, which was so alarming that a U.S. intelligence official who had worked at the White House went to the inspector general of the intelligence community, two former U.S. officials said.
Two and a half weeks before the complaint was filed, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian and political newcomer who was elected in a landslide in May.
That call is already under investigation by House Democrats who are examining whether Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani sought to manipulate the Ukrainian government into helping Trump’s reelection campaign. Lawmakers have demanded a full transcript and a list of participants on the call.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment, but Giuliani had a virtual meltdown while being interview on CNN.
CNN’s @ChrisCuomo: “Did you ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?”@RudyGiuliani: “Of course I did”
President Trump’s attorney says he had spoken with a Ukrainian official about Joe Biden’s possible role in that government’s dismissal of a prosecutor who investigated Biden’s son. pic.twitter.com/hqmqtmx2VW
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) September 20, 2019
The Democrats’ investigation was launched earlier this month, before revelations that a U.S. intelligence official, who previously worked in the White House, had lodged a complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community. The Washington Post first reported on Wednesday that the complaint had to do with a “promise” that Trump made when communicating with a foreign leader.
This morning, the inspector general testified behind closed doors to members of the House Intelligence Committee about the whistleblower’s complaint.
Over the course of three hours, Michael Atkinson repeatedly declined to discuss with members the content of the complaint, saying he was not authorized to do so.
He and the members spent much of their time discussing the process Atkinson followed, the statute governing his investigation of the complaint and the nature of an “urgent concern” that he believed it represented, according to a person familiar with the briefing, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“He was being excruciatingly careful about the language he used,” the person said.
Atkinson made clear that he disagreed with a lawyer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who had contradicted the inspector general and found that the whistleblower complaint did not meet the statutory definition of an urgent concern because it involved a matter not under the DNI’s jurisdiction.
Atkinson told lawmakers that he disagreed with that analysis — meaning he felt the matter was under the DNI’s purview — and also that it was urgent “in the common understanding of the word,” the person said.
Atkinson told the committee that the complaint did not stem from just one conversation, according to two people familiar with his testimony.
Following the meeting, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, warned of legal action if intelligence officials did not share the whistleblower complaint.
Schiff described acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire’s refusal to share the complaint with Congress as “unprecedented” and said he understood the Justice Department was involved in that decision.
“We cannot get an answer to the question about whether the White House is also involved in preventing this information from coming to Congress,” Schiff said, adding: “We’re determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is to make sure that the national security is protected.”
Someone, Schiff said, “is trying to manipulate the system to keep information about an urgent matter from the Congress … There certainly are a lot of indications that it was someone at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence.”
Top Democrat threatens legal action if intelligence chief doesn’t share whistleblower complaint
Trump has denied doing anything improper. In a tweet Thursday morning, the president wrote, “Virtually anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself.
“Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially ‘heavily populated’ call,” Trump wrote.