Whistleblower alleges White House coverup

House Democrats have warned President Trump to stop his “reprehensible witness intimidation” aimed at the whistleblower whose complaint document has triggered the escalating Ukraine scandal.

In a statement released this evening, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and, Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings addressed reports that Trump had referred to the people who gave the whistleblower information as “close to a spy” and said in the old days spies were dealt with differently.

“The President’s comments today constitute reprehensible witness intimidation and an attempt to obstruct Congress’ impeachment inquiry. We condemn the President’s attacks, and we invite our Republican counterparts to do the same because Congress must do all it can to protect this whistleblower, and all whistleblowers,” they said. “Threats of violence from the leader of our country have a chilling effect on the entire whistleblower process, with grave consequences for our democracy and national security.”

The statement said Trump “is fully aware that our committees are seeking testimony from this whistleblower and others referenced in the whistleblower’s complaint released today as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry, and our nation’s laws prohibit efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure a witness not to provide testimony to Congress.”

“No officials with knowledge relevant to the committees’ investigation, including knowledge of the subject of the whistleblower complaint, may be subject to any intimidation, reprisal, or threat of reprisal, and all witnesses must be made available for congressional testimony,” they added.

Former congressman and Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke urged the House of Representatives to move forward with the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

O’Rourke told CNN’s Erin Burnett tonight that impeaching Trump would be “the only way that we get all the facts, the truth and justice at the end of the day.”

“This is about the future of this country and saving our democracy at the moment that it’s on the line. If we set this precedent that some people are above the law because of the position of power or public trust that they hold, then any hope of being able to keep this republic, this democracy is lost forever. So this is the moment — if there ever was one — for members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, to put the future of this country ahead of their party,” he said.

The House’s formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump is “about protecting our Constitution,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at an event tonight.

The California Democrat went on to say that lawmakers “had no choice” but to launch the inquiry, saying it was not a political move.

“This is a very sad time for our country. I say this to you with great sorrow and prayerfully, that we are in a place that I hoped we would never be,” Pelosi said, speaking in Washington, DC,

She continued:

“I never thought we would see a President take the actions that he has. In fact, I don’t think our founders ever thought a president would do such a thing. And they built guard rails into our Constitution to ensure that anyone who might be tempted to do so saw the boundaries. But that has not held this President back and I know this is not a political occasion and I don’t think the action of an inquiry is a political move. It’s not about politics, it’s not about partisanship, it’s about patriotism.”

Kellyanne Conway defended President Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian president and downplayed the impact of the investigation on the White House.

“It doesn’t affect him. It doesn’t affect his presidency. It affects the faith that people have in our democratic institutions the fact that just based on a whistleblower complaint and a leader call that we all have access to,” said Conway, Trump’s senior counselor.

Conway also seemed to deny that the White House has a dedicated team working on the impeachment proceedings. “All this nonsense about war rooms, and special people running things… that’s just not true at the moment. There’s no current need to do that,” she said.

Conway insisted that the President cutting off funding for military aide to Ukraine had nothing to do with his request for “favors” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani may have broken the law due to his involvement in the escalating Ukraine controversy, according to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.

Asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer tonight if he believed Giuliani was potentially criminally liable, Schiff said, “If Mr. Giuliani was involved in a scheme to coerce a foreign government into giving dirt, manufacturing dirt, on President Trump’s political opponent, then yes, that certainly can violate the law — violate the criminal laws.”

Schiff also believes the Justice Department will not investigate Giuliani.

The Justice Department, Schiff said, “made it clear they’re not going to investigate this and they don’t want anyone else to. The fact that they would so cavalierly dismiss this credible evidence and say it is not even worthy of us looking into is yet another affirmation that Attorney General Bill Barr believes that he exists to serve the will and interest of the President, not the presidency, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.”

Some background: The whistleblower complaint, which was released this morning, labels Giuliani as “central figure” in the controversy.

US officials were concerned, the whistleblower said, with Giuliani and his contacts with Ukrainian officials. The whistleblower alleges that US officials believed Giuliani was a conduit for messages between the President and officials in Kyiv and that he was at the helm of a problematic “circumvention of national security decision making processes.”

Speaking to CNN today, Giuliani said he has “no knowledge of any of that crap” in the complaint. Earlier this month, Giuliani denied asking Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden moments before admitting that he had done just that.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe or Hunter Biden.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said today his members “will carry out its jurisdictional responsibilities” to investigate allegations from an intelligence community whistleblower against President Trump. 

Burr said acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire and Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson were “extremely forthcoming” when they met with his committee behind closed-doors for several hours. 

“This will generate more questions than we asked today. The next two weeks we’ll probably be trying to get answers to those,” Burr said, referencing the two-week Senate recess that began today. “Don’t expect us to move at light speed — that will probably happen in the House. But the committee is committed to make sure we get to the bottom of questions (that) need answers.”

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the committee, said it’s been a “rollicking week,” but that the intelligence panel “could take an extraordinarily serious issue in a bipartisan way.”

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, said the hearing was a “worthwhile discussion” and “there are obviously a lot of questions” coming out of it.  

She also defended the whistleblower who Trump suggested was a spy against the US.

“That is a gross mischaracterization of whistleblowers. Whistleblowers have been essential in bringing to the public’s attention to wrongdoing, fraud, waste, abuse, lawbreaking and I very much disagree with the President’s characterization,” she said.

Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican of Missouri and another member of the committee, said he has not drawn any conclusions about the whistleblower’s charges. 

“We’re committed to gather the information before we reach conclusions. Other people who don’t have this responsibility can reach conclusions right away,” Blunt said. “In my case I’m not ready to make any conclusions yet and still ready to gather more information.”

Diplomats are rallying their support of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch after the release of a whistleblower complaint shed further light on the circumstances of her unexpected removal.

The allegations raised in the complaint, in combination with President Trump’s comments about the diplomat revealed in the White House transcript of a call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, lend further credence to the claim that Yovanovitch’s removal from her post last May was politically motivated.

Two major groups representing the diplomatic community issued statements today. Here’s what they said:

In his strongest comment yet on the Ukraine controversy, former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate, claimed President Trump was trying to “hijack an election” by asking Ukraine for help.

At a fundraising reception in San Marino, California, Biden told donors, “He’d like to get foreign help to win elections.”

What we know: A rough transcript of the conversation released by the White House shows Trump repeatedly pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter, during a phone call on July 25.

President Trump’s acknowledgment that he discussed former Vice President Joe Biden in a July call with Ukraine’s president has intensified scrutiny on his interactions and decisions on Ukraine.

The growing controversy stems from a whistleblower complaint that deals, at least in part, with a phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25.

A transcript of the conversation released by the White House shows Trump repeatedly pushed Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe or Hunter Biden

Here’s a timeline of the major developments surrounding the Ukraine controversy:

Vulnerable Democrats privately met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to air out their views about the impeachment process, with some still resistant to the notion about impeaching President Trump.

Several members made clear their views to keep the probe focused on the Ukraine matter — and not the other allegations of wrongdoing detailed in the Mueller report.

Rep. Angie Craig, a vulnerable freshman Democrat from Minnesota, said Pelosi and Democratic leaders mostly listened to the views raised by the lawmakers.

“I’m in a district where I’ve been reluctant to move forward only from the perspective where I want to be disciplined, I want to look at due process and want to make sure we get all of our facts — and this process will allow us to do that,” Craig said, adding she backed a narrow probe led by the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Matt Cartwright, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, told CNN that he wouldn’t — at this point — vote for articles of impeachment.

“I would vote ‘no’ right now because we haven’t seen all the facts,” Cartwright said. “We have to presume that people are innocent don’t we, and we have to see if what the press has been reporting, and what has been revealed in terms of documentation, if all that is true.”

Rep. Anthony Brindisi, a freshman from New York, who has resisted calls for an impeachment probe, told CNN that he’s “not yet” there on impeaching Trump.

“I think that while I find many of the statements in the whistleblower’s report disturbing there’s a lot more information that’s out there,” Brindisi said. “I think we have to talk to some of these officials that they have listed in the report here and see where it goes.”

The White House does not know identity of the whistleblower, and that includes President Trump. 

Why this matters: The president has continued to attack the whistleblower even though he does not know the individual’s identity. Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire also said today that he did not know the identity.

Tomorrow will mark the 200th day without a White House briefing.

Here’s why this is significant: The occasion is especially notable as questions surround the White House on the whistleblower’s complaint and calls for impeachment. 

Press secretary Stephanie Grisham has yet to take to the briefing room podium since she was named to the position on June 26. The lack in briefings was long a problem in the Trump White House before Grisham. Former press secretary Sarah Sanders also allowed the briefings to wane under her tenure. 

In both the Grisham and Sanders eras, the length of time between briefings is longer than any of the preceding 13 press secretaries, according to the American Presidency Project… 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tasked the Intelligence Committee to take the lead on the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, telling her colleagues that the probe will be focused on allegations that he asked the leader of Ukraine to initiate an investigation that could have benefited his reelection, according to sources involved in the conversations.

Democrats no longer plan to make the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into potential obstruction of justice central to their impeachment push, which has been under review by the House Judiciary Committee, though Pelosi has told Democrats that the probe into those and other matters will continue.

The focus, however, will be squarely on the whistleblower allegations of wrongdoing by the President, as Democrats push to rapidly move forward on formal articles of impeachment as soon as this fall.

The decision to make the House Intelligence Committee the lead is a shift from how Pelosi characterized the strategy earlier this week when she said the probe would be done by six committees under the “umbrella” of an impeachment inquiry. The initial description led to some confusion among members about how the investigation would take shape.

The process is now expected to play out like this: The House Intelligence Committee will continue with its probe but the House Judiciary Committee will vote on the articles of impeachment before the full House takes up the matter.

Rep. Jason Crow, a freshmen Democrat from Colorado, spoke with CNN’s Jake Tapper this afternoon about an op-ed he co-signed that calls for impeachment hearings for President Trump.

Crow called the investigation into the whistleblower complaint and Ukraine an “ongoing national security issue.”

“Yesterday when we read the rough notes from the call I was very disturbed and even more shocked today. … To me, and me colleagues that signed on to that op-ed that oath is more than just words. It’s a way of life, a commitment to the country, to our national security and sometimes that entails sacrifice,” Crow said. “So I’m not going to think about the politics of this. We have to divorce politics from this because duty is calling us to protect the country.”

President Trump in the past has railed against employees who leak information to the media — calling them “traitors and cowards.”

But the whistleblower went through established channels — and did not leak.

Why whistleblowing isn’t the same as leaking: The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 protects federal government employees who report violations of the law and other abuses. The act prevents federal agencies from retaliating against employees who report that information.

As acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire repeated throughout his testimony this morning, the anonymous whistleblower who made a complaint about Trump’s call with the President of Ukraine did “everything by the book and followed the law.”

The whistleblower registered a formal complaint with Sen. Richard Burr and Rep. Adam Schiff — in sharp contrast to Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of classified documents about a US government program of mass surveillance in 2013.

So why wasn’t the complaint released sooner? The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 requires that, if the Inspector General determines that the complaint is credible and of urgent concern, then the DNI “shall, within 7 calendar days…forward such transmittal to the intelligence.”

Maguire said that because the complaint involved the President — and executive privilege kept him from releasing it earlier.

The cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, which has been at the center of false conspiracy theories since 2016, is once again in focus after a White House transcript published on Wednesday revealed President Trump brought it up in his July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In a complaint released today by the intelligence community, a whistleblower expressed confusion about Trump’s references to the company.

Here’s what we know about the company:

Keep reading about Crowdstrike here.

President Trump said that whomever provided the whistleblower with information about his call with the Ukrainian president is “close to a spy” and added that in the old days spies were dealt with differently, according to two sources who were in the room and one person who knew someone in the room.

His remarks were first reported by the New York Times. 

One source said the remarks were “shocking” and “eerie” especially because the audience was filled with career foreign service officers who work at the UN. Other top US government officials were in the room as well, including Kelly Craft, the new US Ambassador to the UN.

Not everyone in the room opposed Trump’s comments: Employees from the US Mission to the United Nations could invite their friends or family to the event and most of the people who accepted such an invite were Trump supporters who were not startled by Trump’s threatening tone, another source said. 

Sen. Mitch McConnell walked on in silence as he walked past reporters this afternoon.

McConnell did not engage when asked if he’s concerned the whistleblower alleged Trump sought help from a foreign power to interfere in the 2020 elections.

He also did not respond when asked if he’s concerned that the White House allegedly sought to conceal the president’s conversations and if he has any concerns with Trump asking the Ukraine president to talk to his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

If you are just dropping in, it’s been a busy week in Washington. On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced the House is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump after news of a whistleblower’s complaint surfaced.

Here’s how the story has developed today:

A whistleblower’s complaint, which contains allegations about President Trump’s conduct, is at the center of a controversy that has spurred Democrats to launch a formal impeachment inquiry.

But few details are known about the whistleblower who penned the complaint.

Here’s what we know so far about the whistleblower:

President Trump questioned the credibility of the whistleblower in a tweet, claiming the person “only had second hand information.”

It’s not clear what the President means when he writes that the whistleblower has a “known bias.” The identity of the whistle blower has not been publicly released. 

More context: The Intelligence Community Inspector General said in a letter he sent to the acting Director of National Intelligence that he found the complaint to be credible.

Also, the acting-Director of National Intelligence Joseph McGuire said on Capitol Hill today that he believes the whistleblower acted in “good faith,” and that he or she, “did the right thing.” He also said that the intelligence community inspector general found the complaint credible.

Vice President Mike Pence alluded to today’s hearing and whistleblower complaint release saying that Democrats are trying “to overturn the will of the American people in the last presidential election.”

Pence did not directly reference the hearing or complaint, but said this:

“Truth is while we’re watching our nation’s capital, even today, we see many Democrats who spent the last two and a half years on baseless accusations. And keep trying to overturn the will of the American people in the last presidential election. I’m here to make you a promise — whatever the Democrats and the allies want to spend their time on, President Donald Trump and I are gonna stay focused on the issues that matter most to you…”

Pence did not make further comments, but he is still speaking at the event in Indianapolis focused on the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

A source in attendance at today’s House Democratic whip meeting said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked by Rep. Rosa DeLauro if the other five committees should pause their work while the House Intelligence Committee continues its investigation.

Pelosi said that the committees should continue their work. But she made it clear that the Ukraine issue is in the purview of the Intel committee, which should be taking the lead given the narrow focus of the probe.

She made a similar remark at her weekly press conference this morning.

President Trump has returned to the White House following his trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

He did not take questions from journalists.

Trump took questions from journalists about the whistleblower complaint earlier this afternoon.

Many Senate Republicans said today that they haven’t read the whistleblower complaint yet. Others said the complaint doesn’t change things and raises “more questions than answers.”  

Here’s what they told reporters about the complaint:

President Trump called the person who gave the whistleblower information “close to a spy” and added the US handled spies differently “in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason,” according to a report from The New York Times.

Trump reportedly made the comments this morning to a group of staff from the United States Mission to the United Nations.

“I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information because that’s close to a spy,” Mr. Trump said, according to the New York Times. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

Trump’s comments “stunned” many people listening, the Times reported. Others in the room laughed.

In the complaint, the whistleblower acknowledged he or she did not have first-hand knowledge of most of the events described. 

Earlier today, The acting director of national intelligence just testified on Capitol Hill and said the President never asked for the identity of the whistleblower.

The acting spy chief, however, did not speak to the identity for the person who provided the whistleblower with information.

House Intel chair Rep. Adam Schiff told reporters today that the whistleblower complaint is an urgent matter that needs to be “thoroughly investigated now.”

He did not provide many details on timing but said Democrats will continue to work through the two-week congressional recess that starts next week.

Asked about potential witnesses for the committee to interview , Schiff told CNN he’s “not going to get into specific investigative steps at this point.”

“We’re going to move as expeditiously as possible,” he told reporters. “We will be working to conduct this as quickly as possible.”

President Trump said that he watched “a little bit” of Congressional testimony with acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire today aboard Air Force One.

Maguire testified this morning before the House Intelligence Committee about a whistleblower complaint and his handling of the complaint.

What Maguire told lawmakers: Maguire said the whistleblower’s complaint centered around a phone call between President Trump and a foreign leader — a kind of conversation that is “typically subject to executive privilege.” That’s why he didn’t release it earlier.

Maguire also said he believes both the whistleblower who filed the complaint against President Trump and the inspector general who handled it “acted in good faith.”

President Trump accused Democrats of “making up stories” because he said they know “they’re going to lose the election.”

“It’s Adam Schiff and his crew making up stories,” Trump said, referencing the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The acting director of national intelligence just testified in front of the committee. (Read about the key moments here.)

Trump added: “They’re going to lose the election, they know it, that’s why they’re doing it.”

The President continued to rail against Democrats:

“What these guys are doing, Democrats are doing to this country is a disgrace, and it shouldn’t be allowed. There should be a way of stopping it”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he has not yet read the full whistleblower complaint but said that to the best of his knowledge, “each of the actions that were undertaken by State Department officials was entirely appropriate.”

“To the best of my knowledge, from what I’ve seen so far, each of the actions that were undertaken by State Department officials was entirely appropriate, and consistent with the objective that we’ve had, certainly since this new government has come into office,” he told reporters.

Pompeo continued: “We have tried to use this opportunity to create a better relationship between the United States and Ukraine to build on the opportunities to, tighten our relationship to help end corruption in Ukraine. This is what President Zelensky ran on.”

Some context: The whistleblower complaint states that US officials were concerned with President Trump’s private lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his contacts with Ukrainian officials. The whistleblower alleges the US officials believed Giuliani was a conduit for messages between the President and officials in Kyiv and that he was at the helm of a problematic “circumvention of national security decisionmaking processes.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said there is a “number of potential crimes” when a president asks a for help in an election.

A whistleblower alleged that President Trump abused his official powers “to solicit interference” from Ukraine in the upcoming 2020 election. The whistleblower’s complaint was released this morning.

Rep. Adam Schiff, speaking to reporters moments after the House Intelligence Committee hearing, said the whistleblower complaint shows that “there were efforts made to conceal this scheme.”

“It’s hard to imagine a more serious set of allegations than those contained in the complaint,” Schiff said.

Schiff, who chairs the committee, said he is concerned about the breakdown of the whistleblower system.

“We are profoundly concerned with the breakdown of this whistleblower system that has been manifested over the last month, that a whistleblower who was deemed credible, who had a complaint that was deemed urgent, that a complaint that had to come to Congress would be held in Congress, and would be withheld on the basis of advice given by the subject or subjects of that complaint,” Schiff said.

He continued: “The conflict of interest is all too apparent, all too palpable. It is indeed a minor miracle that we got the complaint at all and that we got the transcript at all. At the end of the day.”

Trump tweeted today that Rep. Adam Schiff’s has “zero credibility.”

Schiff was asked by reporters to respond to the tweet, he said, “I’m always flattered when I’m attacked by someone of the President’s character.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said he plans to bring in the whistleblower to testify.

Some background: The anonymous whistleblower who filed a complaint with the intelligence community inspector general, which includes allegations about President Trump’s conduct, has tentatively agreed to meet with congressional lawmakers, according to correspondence obtained by CNN.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire just arrived for a closed-door briefing with the Senate Intelligence Committee on his handling of the whistleblower’s complaint. Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson is also expected to testify.

The acting DNI spent the morning testifying in a public hearing with members of the House Intelligence Committee, which started just moments after a whistleblower’s complaint against President Trump was released.

The whistleblower’s complaint alleges that President Trump abused his office to “solicit interference” from the president of Ukraine in the upcoming 2020 election – and that the White House helped cover it up.

Larry Kudlow, the President’s chief economic adviser, said that he is “unaware” of a separate electronic system for calls with world leaders and the process for the Ukraine call was the “same that it always is.”

“I am unaware about the separate electronic system, ok. You know, that comes out of the situation room. From what I heard, before the complaint was published, by some of colleagues, was that the answer is no. That it was the same that it always is,” Kudlow told reporters today.

Why this matters: A whistleblower complaint, which was released this morning, states White House lawyers directed officials to remove a transcript of President Trump’s call with the Ukrainian leader from a computer system that stores them for Cabinet-level officials and instead put the transcript in a system for especially sensitive information.

This move concerned some officials, who shared their worries internally that this was an “abuse of the system.”

The whistleblower said they heard from other White House officials that this was “not the first time” that the Trump administration used this storage system to hold politically sensitive documents. The codeword-level system is meant to hold files of national security importance.

After hearing from aides, allies on Capitol Hill and friends, President Trump realized he had no choice but to release the complaint, according to sources familiar.

If he didn’t, the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill would get pounded for stonewalling, and it would likely happen eventually anyway, the sources said. Details would also continue to leak, as they already began to do when the complaint was still classified Wednesday, the sources added.

Adding to the pressure was a rare bipartisan vote in the Republican-led Senate calling on the administration to turn over the whistleblower complaint to intelligence committees.

The Trump campaign just released a statement regarding today’s House Intelligence hearing, calling the whistleblower complaint “an even bigger hoax than the Russian delusion.”

“This whistleblower complaint is an even bigger hoax than the Russia delusion,” spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany said in the statement. “It’s built on second-hand information echoed by the biased fake news media. We now know that this account was cobbled together by a partisan bureaucrat with ‘no direct knowledge,’ represented by an attorney for Hillary Clinton and donor to Joe Biden’s campaign. Democrats are trying to block the inevitable re-election of President Trump because they know they can’t beat him fair and square at the ballot box. “

What we know about the complaint: According to the complaint, which was released this morning, President Trump abused his official powers “to solicit interference” from Ukraine in the upcoming 2020 election, and the White House took steps to cover it up.

The complaint also states that several White House officials were “deeply disturbed” by Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and tried to “lock down” all records of the phone call, especially the word-for-word transcript produced by the White House.

In his comments during Thursday’s House Intelligence hearing, Texas GOP Rep. John Ratcliffe suggested that President Trump’s actions during his call with Ukrainian President Zelensky were fully above board and referred to them as “legal communications.”

Though the rationale he provided for that conclusion is misleading.

During his comments, Ratcliffe claimed that “The United States is allowed to solicit help from a foreign government in an ongoing criminal investigation, which is exactly what President Trump did in that conversation.”

However, the two investigations mentioned in the call had been terminated long before July 25, 2019, when the call occurred.

During the call, President Trump referenced two investigations:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential election Ukraine’s investigation into the owner of Burisma Holdings, a company for which Hunter Biden had sat on the board of directors.

President Trump further asked Zelensky to “find out” about “talk” that former vice president Joe Biden had “stopped the prosecution.”

Back when he was vice president, Biden had indeed called for the firing of the prosecutor overseeing the Burisma investigation, but not for any end to the investigation itself. Biden’s push against the prosecutor was based on several allegations of corruption and part of a broader effort by the Obama administration to fight corruption in Ukraine. 

Burisma said all investigations against the company were closed as of 2017 and Special Counsel Mueller submitted his report on March 22, 2019, signaling the end of that investigation.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee just wrapped.

The hearing started just moments after a whistleblower’s complaint against President Trump was released. The complaint alleges that Trump abused his official powers “to solicit interference” from Ukraine in the upcoming 2020 election, and the White House took steps to cover it up.

Here’s what we learned at the hearing:

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy defended Trump in light of the whistleblower complaint, arguing that nothing he has seen rises to the level of impeachment.

He criticized Democrats for opening an impeachment inquiry, saying they’re doing so “without one bit of evidence.” 

When asked about the whistleblower’s allegation that White House officials stored the transcript of the Ukraine call in a more secure location than typical, McCarthy argued that would have been reasonable. 

“Now I could I see why you would want to put it on a more secure server knowing that earlier in his administration a conversation with another leader from Australia was put forward? Or I watched a New York Times anonymous editorial working within the White House wanting to do anything to undercut him? I think in the world of technology today, yeah, people should secure what’s going forward,” he said.

When asked if what the President did is defensible, McCarthy responded, “Yes. What in this case rises to impeachment? This is a president of the United States that had a conversation with a leader in another country.” 

“I think it’s very clear that it’s not” impeachable, McCarthy said. “There is nothing in that transcript that rises to impeachment.”

The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel essentially ignored additional allegations from the whistleblower outside the July 25 Trump-Zelensky call when it determined his complaint should be kept in-house, according to a newly unsealed memo from the DOJ policy office.

OLC’s Steven Engel was tasked to interpret only whether the whistleblower complaint was indeed an “urgent concern” under the law. The Office of Legal Counsel decided it was not.

The Office of Legal Counsel was the first unit within the Justice Department to learn of the whistleblower’s complaint, senior officials said yesterday.

The OLC’s acknowledgement of the other allegations are in two footnotes in the now-declassified September 3 opinion advising Director of National Intelligence what to do about the complaint. The OLC’s binding advice was to keep the whistleblower complaint within the Justice Department for a possible criminal probe instead of sending it to Congress in early September. 

The original September 3 memo acknowledges the whistleblower’s accusations that the President chose to suspend security assistance to Ukraine because of an improper motive, and that White House officials attempted to lock down the transcript of Trump’s July call out of political rather than national security concern. But those accusations aren’t part of the OLC’s main considerations, instead appearing only in the memo’s footnotes.

The Office of Legal Counsel posted the redacted September 3 memo on its website Thursday morning, noting it is now declassified. The Justice Department had previously released a slightly rewritten, unclassified version of the same legal opinion that did not include the two footnotes acknowledging the whistleblower’s other concerns.

The legal policy office ultimately sent the whistleblower’s complaint to the Criminal Division, which considered whether the President’s call could have violated a campaign finance law prohibiting foreign contributions in American elections. 

More context: Senior Justice Department officials said Wednesday the prosecutors looked at the call transcript alone for whether the President’s actions could have violated that law–but did not acknowledge looking for other possible crimes. The newly released OLC memo, too, only acknowledges in its reasoning the possibility of that foreign influence campaign finance violation.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff expressed frustration with the limits of the DOJ inquiry at a hearing on Thursday.

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi just questioned Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire on whether he discussed the whistleblower complaint with former DNI Dan Coats or Coats’s former deputy Sue Gordon.

Not only did Maguire deny that he discussed the complaint with either of them, he told Krishnamoorthi he would not have taken the job if he had. Maguire took this job nearly two months ago.

Maguire also said he didn’t think Coats or Gordon were aware of the complaint or that Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Michael Atkinson had it. 

 “To the best of my ability, I do not think either Director Coats or our principal deputy Sue Gordon have any sense at all about this whistleblower complaint or that Michael Atkinson had it,” he said.

During the hearing, Democratic members have pressed Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire on why he did not provide the whistleblower complaint to the committee within the seven-day period required by law.

As the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 states, if the Inspector General determines that the complaint is credible and of urgent concern then the DNI “shall, within 7 calendar days…forward such transmittal to the intelligence committees.”

The IG determined the complaint was credible on August 26. Yet Maguire didn’t provide it to Congress until Wednesday night, September 25 – almost a month later.

Maguire claimed that because the complaint involved the President, he was required to work with the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel to determine if there was content protected by executive privilege in the complaint.

“It appeared that it also had matters of executive privilege,” Maguire told the committee.

On September 24, the OLC issued an opinion refuting the IG’s determination that the whistleblower’s complaint was of urgent concern.

Maguire said that while the complaint was forwarded to the FBI, he was attempting to work out executive privilege concerns. But the law says nothing about the President or the OLC having authority to stop or slow the complaint from being sent to the intelligence committees.

Presidential authority over confidential information has long been a point of dispute between Congress and the executive branch, and the legality surrounding it remains unclear. In fact, when President Bill Clinton signed the intel community whistleblower act, he said that the law “does not constrain my constitutional authority to review and, if appropriate, control disclosure of certain classified information to Congress.”

So while the law is seemingly quite clear, the OLC argued that the law “does not cover every alleged violation of federal law or other abuse that comes to the attention of a member of the intelligence community,” especially when it concerns activity outside of a specific agency’s purview.

A person who has spoken to Trump in the last 24 hours said the President “appeared more distracted” than he’s been in the past and doesn’t quite appreciate the potential peril for his administration in light of the latest of revelations in the Ukraine investigation. 

The supporter, who had a phone conversation with Trump, said the President was bragging that the Ukraine controversy was fueling his base and pointing to how much money his campaign had raised over the last few days.

But this supporter said a difference in Trump’s focus was noticeable during the call, adding the President seemed distracted at times during the discussion.

Trump, the supporter said, views the Ukraine issue as more of a “pain in the ass,” not the growing legal challenge that’s emerged this week.

In an exchange with Democratic Rep. Denny Heck, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said that if a president pressured a foreign government for help winning an election, it would be “unwarranted,” “unwelcome” and “bad for the nation.”

He did not, however, say if it was illegal.

Here’s the full exchange:

Heck: Director, whether it’s this President or any president, do you believe it is OK for the president of the United States to pressure a foreign country into helping him or her win an election?

Maguire: Congressman Heck, I believe that no one is above the law. And we’ve discussed what we think applies to the law. 

Heck: So it is illegal to solicit?

Maguire: No I can’t answer that, again sir—

Heck: I can’t reconcile your two statements. Is it ok for a president to pressure, any president, to pressure a foreign government for help to win an election?

Maguire: It is unwarranted, it is unwelcome, it is bad for the nation, to have outside interference, any foreign power—

Heck: Thank you. And by extension, it would be equally unacceptable to extort that assistance as well?

Maguire: I mean, all I know is that I have the transcripts as you have. I have the whistleblower complaint as you have. And—

Heck: I wasn’t referring to the whistleblower complaint, but if any president were to do this, and I accept your answer. I think it’s beyond unacceptable, director.

Maguire: Yes sir.

Former Vice President and current 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden said Trump “believes there is no limit to his power” and “believes he is above the law.”

“This isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. This is a national issue,” Biden tweeted.

Why Biden matters: President Trump repeatedly pushed for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden, and his son, Hunter, during a July 25 phone call, according to a transcript of the conversation released by the White House.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing on the Bidens’ parts.

Here’s Biden’s full tweet:

Corey Lewandowski, the political operative who helped elect President Trump, has had conversations with White House officials in recent days about potentially taking a position inside the administration to help Trump confront a looming impeachment fight.

The discussions, including a Thursday afternoon meeting at the White House, reflect the growing recognition among Trump’s allies and advisers that he is without a clear strategy for managing the crisis, which exploded in stunning fashion this week.

Trump’s 2016 campaign manager would be in a crisis management type role, and the idea as it currently stands would be for Lewandowski to assemble a team that mirrors the one that existed in Bill Clinton’s White House when he was facing his own impeachment. 

The list of potential players on the team includes David Bossie, his former deputy campaign manager who angered the President earlier this year by soliciting funds using Trump’s name. Bossie served as the chief investigator of the House Oversight Committee in 1997, helping scrutinize Clinton.

The team would be to help spearhead strategy and messaging as the House of Representative’s impeachment probe heats up. The role could also exist outside the White House, and many of the details of the arrangement are still unclear.

House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff pushed back on Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire’s declaration that the focus of the complaint was “not election security.” 

“You’re not suggesting, are you, that the President is somehow immune from the laws that preclude a US person from seeking foreign help in a US election, are you?” Schiff asked.

Here’s how the exchange went down: 

Schiff: And if that conversation involved the President requesting help in the form of intervention in our election, is that not an issue of interference in our election? 

Maguire: Chairman, once again, this was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into– 

Schiff: I understand that, but you’re not suggesting, are you, that the President is somehow immune from the laws that preclude a US person from seeking foreign help in a US election, are you? 

Maguire: What I am saying, Chairman Schiff, is that no one, none of us, is above the law in this country.

A Trump appointee has found himself mired in the center of the controversy surrounding the whistleblower complaint about Trump and Ukraine. Here’s what you need to know about Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.

Who is Atkinson?

Appointed as IC IG by Trump in 2018, Atkinson’s long-standing reputation as a straight-shooter with professional integrity has bolstered the legitimacy of the whistleblower complaint despite the President’s attempts to paint it as a partisan attack, multiple sources have told CNN.

Why is the IC IG an important player here?

At the end of August, two weeks after Atkinson received the whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s July phone call, he notified his superior, the acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. Atkinson believed it to be a credible complaint and found it worthy to be handled by the intelligence community and referred to Congress under the law.

But instead of routing to Congress, the whistleblower’s allegation wound its way across the Justice Department.

How Atkinson dealt with the Department of Justice

Atkinson, who had first heard from the whistleblower, also referred the matter to the Justice Department.

That notification — along with communications from Maguire to Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel — kicked off the DOJ’s probe of whether there was a possible violation of a campaign finance criminal statute.

Justice’s Criminal Division took the lead. Prosecutors obtained the summary transcript of the call from the White House, and prosecutors confirmed with knowledgeable people at the White House that the five-page document was the best evidence available, according to the officials. They did not interview any to gather more facts.

On the day after Labor Day, the Office of Legal Counsel had its answer for Maguire. The whistleblower’s complaint shouldn’t be considered of “urgent concern” and require disclosure to Congress, Steven Engel, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel wrote.

Maguire is defending Atkinson today

During his testimony before the House Intel Committee, the acting spy chief said he believes everything that Atkinson did was lawful and said he intends to ensure that Atkinson can continue “to be able to do his job unfettered.”

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire just said intelligence officials’ most important job is protecting US elections.

“I think that the greatest challenge that we face is not necessarily, you know, from a strike with Russia or China or Iran or North Korea,” he said. “I think the greatest challenge that we do have is to make sure that we maintain the integrity of our election system.”

Maguire added that “we know there are foreign powers trying to get us to question the validity” of our elections.

“So first and foremost, I think protecting the sanctity of our elections, whether it be national, city, state and local is perhaps the most important job we have with the intelligence community,” he said.

Speaking to CNN from his room at the Trump International Hotel, Rudy Giuliani said he has “no knowledge of any of that crap” in the newly released complaint from an American intelligence community whistleblower. 

Asked this morning about details from the complaint that multiple US officials were “deeply concerned” about Giuliani’s activities speaking with Ukrainian officials and nationals, Giuliani called the charge “total nonsense.” 

Giuliani refuted claims included in the complaint that two State Department officials had spoken to him to “contain the damage” he was doing to US national security interests regarding his work with Ukraine. “

Giuliani also said he had a “nice little trail” of text message conversations with the top US diplomat to Ukraine, Karl Volker, to prove his story.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi read aloud parts of the public whistleblower complaint during her weekly presser:

“The complaint states that the White House tried to lock down all records of the call, especially the word for word transcript. That gave the whistleblower reason to believe that they, the White House, understood the gravity of what transpired in that call. The complaint reports a quote, repeated abuse of an electronics record system designed to store classified, sensitive national security information which the White House used to hide information of a political nature.”

“This is a cover up,” Pelosi said. “This is a cover up.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said there is “no rush to judgement” when asked about how House will proceed with the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

She noted that some in the Democratic caucus want to rush into impeachment, but she added that it’s important to “have an inquiry to further establish the facts.”

Here’s how she described it at her weekly news conference:

“We have to make a judgement in an inquiry as we go forward … There are some in our caucus who think let’s just have an impeachment. No, we have to have an inquiry to further establish the facts. There is no rush to judgement and in some ways we are a jury, open to what might be exculpatory or not. But every day, the sadness grows because the disregard for our Constitution that the President has becomes more clear.”

The House Speaker is talking to reporters now. We will post those key highlights here in moments.

Republicans are keying in to the fact that the whistleblower acknowledges he or she did not have first-hand knowledge of most of the events described.  

The Intelligence Inspector General said he thought the claims were credible and that drove his push to provide Congress the details and refer the matter to the Justice Department for consideration of criminality.

But the public now has a way to test at least part of his claims: His description of the President’s phone call with the leader of Ukraine. By all appearances, his information was spot on. 

The description of the call comprises the first set of claims in the complaint and the whistleblower says he is aware of it because of “White House officials with direct knowledge of the call.”

The whistleblower then goes on to explain what transpired on the July 25 call in details that match up with the White House transcript released just yesterday. 

The whistleblowers’ complaint — which was released publicly today — describes key parts of the call: The push to investigate Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, the allegations regarding Crowdstrike and the push to talk to Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.

A US defense official told CNN that the Pentagon is “compiling all the facts” to be able to respond to Inspector General and members of Congress.

The official said it is still the case that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s involvement was limited to the talking points he made in the phone call to counterpart.

According to a senior administration official, the talking points for Esper’s call with his Ukrainian counterpart on September 18 are…

Had Ukraine taken steps to broadly address corruption enough to assure any funds and equipment would be handled properly.  Was North Atlantic Treaty Organization or any European partners looking to provide, or asked to provide similar assistance. This was in fact a standard theme with Esper. Was the package tailored to be a good return on investment in deterring or checking Russian aggression.

Some background: A group of democratic senators sent a letter yesterday to the Pentagon’s inspector general requesting the IG to investigate President Trump’s delay of military aid to Ukraine and that it was “allegedly at the direction of the White House.” 

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said President Trump never asked him to find out the identity of the whistleblower.

Answering a question from Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier, Maguire said:

He added that no one else in the White House or in the Justice Department asked him to do so.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said other foreign leaders may be “more cautious” when talking to the President and speak to him less after the White House released a rough transcript of the call between Trump and Ukraine’s leader.

“I think that other future leaders, when they interact with our head of state, might be more cautious in what they say and reduce the interaction that they have with the President because of that release,” he said.

While the whistleblower’s complaint has been released, we still do not know the identity or even the gender of the person who filed it.

Representatives questioning Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire at today’s hearing have referred to the whistleblower as “he or she.” Maguire has called the whistleblower “he” multiple times.

However, Maguire said in this hearing that he doesn’t know who the whistleblower is either.

Ohio Republican Rep. Mike Turner said the conversation between President Trump and the Ukrainian leader is “not OK.”

“I think it’s disappointing to the American public,” Turner added.

However, Turner said it is not what is in the complaint, and criticized Schiff’s account of the transcript.

Asked by Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell if he agreed that how this complaint was handled would have a “chilling effect” on future whistleblowers who might want to come forward, Joseph Maguire said he agreed.

He added that he believes there are many people in the intelligence community who are “not being productive” today because they are watching this hearing.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said he doesn’t know who the whistleblower who filed the complaint about Trump is.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire would not say if he spoke with President Trump about the whistleblower complaint, noting that his conversations with the President are privileged.

Democratic Rep. Jim Himes asked Maguire about his conversations with Trump. Here’s how the exchange unfolded:

Himes: Did you ever speak to the President about this complaint? 

Maguire: “My conversations with the President, because I am the Director of National Intelligence, are privileged, and it would be inappropriate for me because it would destroy my relationship with the President in intelligence matters to divulge any of my conversations with the President of the united States.”

Himes: “But, just so we can be clear for the record, you are not denying that you spoke to the President about this complaint?” 

Maguire: “What I am saying, congressman, is that I will not divulge privileged conversations that I have as the Director of National Intelligence with the President.”

You can read the acting spy chief’s complete opening statement from his whistleblower complaint testimony before the House Intel Committee here.

Ranking Member of the House Intel Committee Devin Nunes warned the acting spy chief about his testimony.

Maguire responded that he’s “honored” to be leading the intelligence community.

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the committee, falsely alleged in his opening statement that former vice president Joe Biden boasted of pressuring Ukraine to fire a prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, “Who happened to be investigating Biden’s own son.”

There is no evidence Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was ever under investigation.

As we explained in this detailed fact check, the investigation was into the business dealings of Mykola Zlochevsky, who owned a natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, for which Hunter Biden had sat on the board of directors.

And it’s unclear even if the investigation into Zlochevsky was active at the time Biden applied his pressure on the Ukrainians. Former deputy prosecutor Vitaliy Kasko, who had resigned alleging corruption in the prosecutor’s office, told Bloomberg News this year that the investigation had been allowed to become dormant.

Acting DNI Joseph Maguire told lawmakers that his office consulted with the White House counsel after receiving the complaint because calls with foreign leaders usually fall under executive privilege, adding that such privilege was something he did not have the authority to waive. 

Maguire also defended the ODNI’s initial decision not to hand over the whistleblower complaint because it involved someone who did not fall “under” his supervision or within the intelligence community.

He added that the because of this his office went to the OLC for guidance, which advised that he was not legally bound to provide it to the committee. 

During his testimony, the acting spy chief said the case that they’re discussing today is “unique and unprecedented” compared to other whistleblower cases he is aware of.

Here was the full exchange:

Maguire: I want to say once again, I believe that the situation we have and why we’re here this morning is because this case is unique and unprecedented.

Nunes: So why are cases normally not handled out in the public?

Maguire: All the other cases that came before either this committee or the senate committee, whether or not they met the criteria of urgent concern were forwarded because they involved members of the intelligence community who were, in fact, in organizations underneath the DNI’s authority and responsibility. This one just didn’t come that way because it involved a member – an individual who is not a member of the intelligence community or an organization underneath the authority of the DNI. So this one is different from all others in the past that I am aware of.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said he has not investigated the truthfulness of the whistleblower’s complaint.

He was responding to a question from GOP Rep. Devin Nunes.

Here’s how the exchange went down:

Nunes: “I just want to get one thing straight, because one of the quotes they’re going to use from you is you saying that this was a credible complaint. That will be used and spun as you’re saying that it was true. And I want to give you an opportunity to — you do not — you have not investigated the veracity or the truthfulness of this complaint.”

Maguire: “That’s correct, ranking member.”

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said he knew the whistleblower’s complaint was a “serious matter” as soon as he read it and the Inspector General’s report about it.

House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff asked Maguire: “Did that conflict of interest concern you?”

The Inspector General wrote a report on the whistleblower’s complaint.

You can read the full document for yourself here.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said he believes both the whistleblower who filed the complaint against President Trump and the inspector general who handled it “acted in good faith.”

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said the whistleblower’s complaint centered around a phone call between President Trump and a foreign leader — a kind of conversation that is “typically subject to executive privilege.”

He said executive privilege is a “privilege that I do not have the authority to wave.”

“Because of that, we were unable to immediately share the details of the complaint with this committee,” he said.

In his opening remarks, acting spy chief Maguire said he has done his duty and defended the whistleblower.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, said he’s “not political” and cited his oath to protect the US Constitution.

He continued:

“I believe in a life of service and I’m honored to be a public servant. I served under eight presidents while I was in uniform. I have taken the oath to the constitution 11 times. The first time when I was sworn into the United States Navy in 1974 and nine times during my subsequent promotions in the United States Navy … The oath is sacred. It’s a foundation of our Constitution. The oath, to me, means not only that I swear a true faith and allegiance to that sacred document, but more importantly I view it as a covenant I have with my work force that I lead and every American that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of my office.

In a cover letter accompanying the whistleblower’s complaint that ICIG Michael Atkinson wrote that the alleged conduct “would also potentially expose” Trump “to serious national security and counterintelligence risks with respect to foreign intelligence services aware of such alleged conduct. 

Atkinson also writes that the whistleblower’s complaint amounts to a “serious or flagrant problem [or] abuse” under US statutes regarding the inspector general’s office.

The comments were made in a letter sent to the the Acting DNI on August 26. Atkinson explains the reasoning behind his determination that the information amounted to an “urgent concern” writing.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire was just sworn in for his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said the whistleblower complaint “relied on hearsay” during his opening remarks before the acting DNI’s testimony.

“The complaint relied on hearsay evidence provided by the whistleblower. The inspector general did not know the contents of the phone call at issue. The inspector general found the whistleblower displayed arguable political bias against trump. The Department of Justice investigated the complaint and determined no action was warranted,” Nunes said.

He added that, “Once again, this supposed scandal ends up being nothing like what we were told.”

GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, accused Democrats of launching an “information warfare operation” against President Trump

He claimed that the White House transcript of the July call “debunked” accusations of presidential wrongdoing.

The whistleblower expresses confusion about Trump’s references to CrowdStrike during his calls with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Some context: The Democratic National Committee hired CrowdStrike in 2016 to investigate hacks to its computers, which were later blamed on the Russian government. 

In the call, Trump mentioned the US cybersecurity firm and said, “the server, they say Ukraine has it.” Trump also encouraged Zelensky to “find out what happened” with the server.

The whistleblower added that Trump had previously connected the DNC server to Ukraine in television interviews.  

Trump’s interest in CrowdStrike and the DNC server, more than three years after the hacks, is part of a larger effort to undermine the notion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help him win. He has repeatedly rejected the assessment from CrowdStrike, which was later confirmed by US intelligence agencies, that Russia was behind the DNC hacks and leaks.

Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, says in response to the whistleblower complaint: 

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff called the White House transcript of the call between Trump and the Ukraine president the “most graphic evidence yet that the President of the United States has betrayed his oath of office.”

He is speaking at a hearing with Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire.

The whistleblower alleges that the administration has locked down other Trump transcripts in a more secretive computer system for political reasons, according to his complaint.

The whistleblower describes how the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call was moved to a computer system managed by the National Security Council Directorate for Intelligence Programs, in a partially redacted appendix attached to his complaint.  

This move was concerning to some officials, who shared their concerns internally that this was an “abuse of the system.”

“According to White House officials I spoke with, this was ‘not the first time’ under this Administration that a Presidential transcript was placed into this codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive–rather than national security sensitive–information.”

The whistleblower does not provide further details of these allegations.

The whistleblower complaint has been released to the public.

Here’s what we know and don’t so far about the whistleblower:

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire is testifying before the House Intelligence Committee.

Maguire is facing intense scrutiny amid a widening controversy surrounding his handling of a whistleblower complaint regarding President Trump.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Maguire threatened to resign if the White House tried to restrict his testimony before Congress.

He denied the report with this statement:

“At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on Aug. 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life, and I am not going to start now. I am committed to leading the Intelligence Community to address the diverse and complex threats facing our nation.”

Questionable rapid-pace decisions spurred by President Trump himself have left some his allies wondering if there’s a cogent strategy in place to counter Democrats in the wake of the fast-moving impeachment inquiry, people familiar with the matter say.

Some people close to him believe the President is in denial about the gravity of his predicament.

A depleted West Wing now faces another storm that’s likely to distract from the few policy goals aides were hoping to accomplish by year’s end.

And the President himself — even after months of anticipation — has nonetheless taken the impeachment developments hard.

At a fundraiser Wednesday night, Trump greeted some of his longtime friends, who’d paid thousands of dollars to attend, with disbelief at what had unfolded, according to a person who was there. 

After two-and-a-half years of weathering incremental developments in the Russia investigation that did not trigger an impeachment inquiry, the speed at which the Ukraine scandal unfolded has left Trump and his aides whiplashed.

Many White House officials said they were in disbelief at how rapidly Democrats have sped up their impeachment inquiry against Trump. For years, the constant drumbeat of impeachment loomed over the White House, but officials now feel like the ground has shifted beneath them.

US officials had been concerned, the whistleblower said, with Trump’s private lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s contact with Ukraine.

The whistleblower alleges the US officials believed Giuliani was a conduit for messages between the President and officials in Kyiv.

Two US State Department officials had spoken with Giuliani “in an attempt to ‘contain the damage’ to US national security,” the whistleblower writes. 

The State Department officials also met with Ukrainian leaders to grasp differing messaging they were receiving from US officials versus Giuliani, the whistleblower wrote.

The complaint also describes how on the day after the president’s call with the Ukraine leader, State officials met with Ukrainian political figures and provided advice “about how to “navigate” the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskyy.”

The whistleblower says the call between the president and the Ukrainian president on July 25th was not restricted because it was “expected to be ‘routine.’”

He lists various people who were on the call and read in on the call after it happened including at the White House, State Department and intelligence community.

The whistleblower says he or she learned from US officials that President Trump instructed Vice President Mike Pence to cancel planned travel to Ukraine to attend President Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration in May.

Instead he sent Secretary of Energy Rick Perry to lead the delegation, according to the declassified complaint. 

The whistleblower also said he or she learned from the US officials that Trump did not want to meet himself with Zelensky until Trump saw how Zelensky “chose to act” in office, the complaint says. 

In the days following the July phone call, the whistleblower learned from multiple US officials that senior White House officials had intervened to “lock down: all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced as is customary by the White House Situation Room. This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.” 

The whistleblower continued: 

“White House officials told me that they were “directed” by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored for coordination, finalization, and distribution to Cabinet-level officials. 

Instead the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of any especially sensitive nature. 

One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.

The whistleblower wrote that the July 25 call — which he describes details similar to the transcript released by the White House on Wednesday — left White House officials “disturbed by what had transpired.” 

The complaint notes White House lawyers were “already in discussion” about “how to treat the call because of the likelihood, in the officials’ retelling, that they had witnessed the president abuse his office for personal gain.”

President Trump tweeted just after the whistleblower’s complaint against him was released.

The whistleblower complaint centers on concern that President Trump was using his power to “solicit interference from a foreign country” into the election.

The complainant says the President’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, “is a central figure in this effort.”

The House Intelligence Committee has released the declassified whistleblower complaint regarding President Trump’s phone call with Ukraine president Zelensky.

You can read it here.

The whistleblower’s complaint about President Trump’s communications with Ukraine has been declassified and could be released as soon as this morning, three sources told CNN.

We don’t know exactly what time that could happen, but these are the planned events we’re watching today:

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire — nearly two months after taking over as head of the intelligence agency — is facing intense scrutiny amid a widening controversy surrounding his handling of a whistleblower complaint regarding President Trump.

Maguire is set to testify before the House Intelligence Committee at 9 a.m. ET today regarding the complaint.

Maguire and Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson are scheduled to go behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee as well, according to a source familiar with the plans.

More than half the US House of Representatives have now said they support the impeachment investigation into President Trump. 

The numbers: There are at least 217 House Democrats – according to a CNN count – who publicly stated support for impeachment proceedings. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a former Republican who has since become an independent, has also called for an impeachment investigation, bringing the total number of representatives to 218, or just over half of the 435-member chamber.

Why this matters: Reaching the halfway mark on this issue is a significant development as a majority of the House would be needed to vote to impeach the President in order to send the process to the Senate.

But remember: CNN’s count includes many Democrats who say they support an impeachment investigation but are still waiting for the results of the probe before deciding whether to finally vote to impeach Trump.

Even if the House could pass the vote, it likely would go nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate, one of many reasons the issue has been politically divisive among Democrats and a large part of why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had for months avoided calling Democratic investigations an impeachment inquiry.  

Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed he has read the classified whistle blower report, though he would not confirm what was in it. 

He said “much of what is in the report is already out in the public domain.”

When asked whether there was anything in the report that he found “deeply troubling” or concerning — as his fellow Republican Sens. Mitt Romney or Ben Sasse have previously stated — Cotton said “no.”

On Tuesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into the President, and the number of House Democrats who at least support launching an impeachment inquiry is quickly approaching the 218 votes needed to impeach Trump in the House (But note: It is unknown if all those who are in favor of an impeachment inquiry will vote to do so.)

Of the 235 Democrats in the House, there are at least 215 – according to a CNN count – who’ve made clear they support starting the impeachment inquiry process, while some have gone further.

Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a former Republican who has since become an independent, has also called for impeachment proceedings, bringing the total number of representatives to 216.

You can see the full whip count here.

President Trump is tweeting this morning.

Here’s his tweet:

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov today declined comment on the publication of a transcript of President Trump’s July 25 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling it an “internal matter” for the US and Ukraine. 

“I will not comment on this,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

He continued:

“This is an exclusively internal matter of the US and Ukraine, especially if this publication happened by mutual agreement. In general, we must admit that, of course, the publication of a full recording of the conversation, whether it be a telephone conversation or face-to-face conversation, does not happen too often in international diplomatic practice, at least it hasn’t happened often until now.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has provided Congress with a declassified version of whistleblower complaint so members can use at today’s hearing, an office spokesperson told CNN.

Here’s the statement:

“Consistent with the accommodations process, last night ODNI formally transmitted a properly classified version of the complaint to the congressional intelligence committees. We also provided Congress a redacted version of the complaint that Members can bring to an open hearing. ODNI is not planning to release the redacted version of the complaint at this time.”

The whistleblower’s complaint about President Trump’s communications with Ukraine has been declassified and could be released as soon as Thursday morning, three sources told CNN late Wednesday night.

The first two sources spoke to CNN after Rep. Chris Stewart, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Twitter late Wednesday night that the complaint had been declassified.

The complaint was hand delivered Wednesday afternoon to Capitol Hill, giving lawmakers their first chance to see the classified account that spurred Democrats to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. Democrats reading the document, which is available to lawmakers in two secure facilities, one in each chamber, say it backs up their commitment to their investigation.