With the inspector general for the Intelligence Community refusing to reveal which foreign leader a whistleblower accuses President Trump of making a secret promise to, commentators and critics Thursday pointed to Ukraine.
Three congressional committees have previously announced a probe into whether Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani took actions in order ‘to pressure the government of Ukraine to assist the President’s reelection campaign.’
That fact alone raised the possibility that Ukraine could be involved, as the administration and Democrats in Congress were in tense stand off over the Trump administration’s refusal to reveal a mystery claim by an intelligence whisteblower now widely reported to be about the president himself.
The Democratic-run committees asked the White House for records of the Trump’s July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Zelinksy. That call took place days before the whistleblower filed an August 12 complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community, charging Trump made a promise to a still unidentified foreign leader.
George Conway, a Trump critic and the husband of counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, retweeted several postings that pointed the finger at Ukraine.
One was a tweet by longtime Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Jackson Diehl, who wrote Thursday: ‘Here again is the Washpost editorial on how Trump tried to coerce Ukraine’s president into investigating Joe Biden by withholding military aid.’
President Donald Trump spoke to the president of Ukraine on July 25, days before a whistleblower filed a complaint about a promise he made to the head of an unidentified country
It was a reference to the administration holding up $250 million in congressionally appropriated funds for the country, which has tense relations with Russia.
The BBC’s Kiev correspondent Jonah Fisher tweeted: ‘Is Ukraine’s neophyte President about to be sucked into US politics? Could the Trump-Zelensky call be the one which lead to the US whistleblower complaint?’
None of the commentators said they had unearthed evidence that the whistleblower’s complaint dealt with Ukraine.
Conway also posted an online poll: ‘Given all of the dumb and nutty and inappropriate things @realDonaldTrump has said to the world on television and Twitter, is he dumb and nuts enough to say something inappropriate on a secure line with a foreign leader?’
He also retweeted longtime correspondent Laura Rozen, who referenced the Independent’s report on Ukraine, and that panel chairs want to scrutinize the Trump-Ukraine phone call.
‘If this actually happened, @realDonaldTrump should be impeached and removed from office without delay,’ Conway wrote.
Conway’s post drew a response from former National Security Council staffer and CNN commentator Samantha Vinograd. ‘Trump has recently put a hold on $250B in security assistance for Ukraine,’ she wrote.
Washington Post longtime political reporter Karen Tumulty retweeted a Post op-ed titled: ‘Trump tries to force Ukraine to meddle in the 2020 election.’
Washington lawyer and blogger Susan Simpson wrote: ‘I know there’s a lot of plausible speculation that the whistleblower’s complaint relates to Trump’s July 31st call with [Vladimir] Putin, but after reading the IG’s letter, I’m more concerned about Trump’s July 25th call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky.’
That prompted former Obama CIA and National Security Council Spokesman Ned Price to write: ‘The New York Times’ new datapoint–that this pertains to a series of events–makes this scenario seem pretty compelling. Regardless, it’s striking that Trump took part in two calls within a week of one another that, to the naked eye, look suspicious.’
Democrats are investigating whether Trump pushed Ukraine to probe Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani announced his intention to go to Ukraine this year to push the issue
The paper reported that the whistleblower’s claim involved ‘multiple acts going beyond a single pledge to a world leader’ – a potentially key piece of information about what country it refers to.
That would seem to hold up in the case of Ukraine, given a series of contacts about the issue in recent months.
Ukraine’s president pushed back against reports that Trump held back the military funds while demanding a probe that could help his presidential campaign.
‘Now we can say we have very good relations with the US because now we will get not only $250 million but [an additional] $140 million,’ he said, the Independent reported. ‘When you are waiting for $250 million have the possibility to get $390 million, I like this sort of relationship,’ Zelensky said. ‘I am sure we will have a meeting in the White House, because I was invited,’ he added.
The focus on Ukraine – a country whose politics already featured in the 2016 elections due to jailed Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort’s work on behalf of a Ukrainian oligarch – came amid a furor over the whistleblower story.
The Director of National Intelligence on Thursday refused to provide details to Congress on a whistleblower’s ‘urgent’ claim about a secret promise President Trump reportedly made a foreign leader, lawmakers said.
The IG took the position, which Democrats cast as stonewalling, after consulting with White House and top Justice Department lawyers, it was reported Thursday.
Facing the roadblock, House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff of California threatened Thursday to sue the administration.
The standoff escalated by the hour Thursday, culminating in reports that the president’s allege actions that prompted the whistleblower to come forward involved multiple steps beyond a single country’s leader.
Schiff, a favorite Trump target, told reporters the acting DNI, Joseph Maguire, has made the ‘unprecedented decision not to share the complaint with Congress,’ despite whistleblower laws requiring reporting to Congress of legitimate complaints.
‘The whole point of the whistleblower statute is not only to encourage those to report problems, abuses, violations of laws, but also to have a legal mechanism to do so and not to disclose classified information — because there’s no other remedy,’ Schiff said after lawmakers grilled the IG for the intelligence community in private.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) blasted the Director of National Intelligence’s decision not to share a whistleblower complaint reported to involve President Donald Trump despite statutes that mandate reporting to Congress
The decision to hold back the information from Congress came after the White House weighed in, CNN reported.
The White House Counsel and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel were both involved in the decision and vetted it with the Director of National Intelligence, according to the report.
It was not immediately clear if the White House lawyers told the DNI to assert a privilege and hold back the information. In other Democratic congressional investigations, White House and Justice Department lawyers have had administration officials assert an ‘absolute immunity’ from having to testify.
Schiff’s complaints came after the IG, Michael Atkinson, who he has previously said called the matter ‘urgent,’ declined to confirm to lawmakers public reports about the whistleblower’s complaint.
Pressed by lawmakers, he told them he could not confirm the whistleblower’s stunning complaint about the president.
The New York Times reported that Atkinson did allow that the complaint involved multiple acts going beyond a single pledge to a world leader.
The DNI’s office wrote lawmakers that the whistleblower complaint ‘involves confidential and potentially privileged communications by persons outside the Intelligence Community.’
Schiff blasted the push-back and threatened to sue. ‘There is no privilege that covers whether the White House is involved in trying to stifle a whistleblower complaint,’ he said.
His complaint followed closed meetings with the IG.
The IG wrote Schiff Sept. 9, explaining that he determined the complaint met the definition of an ‘urgent concern.’ But he also revealed a split with the DNI, who was not transmitting the information to Congress. The Acting DNI’s decision ‘does not appear to be consistent with past practice,’ he wrote.
Amid the lack of hard public information, speculation swirled around which leader the president might have made a promise to. Immediate speculation focused on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Trump spoke to by phone in a call where a brief White House readout said they discussed Siberian forest fires.
President Donald Trump denied Thursday denied making an ‘inappropriate’ comment to a foreign leader in a phone call that formed the basis of a reported whistleblower complaint – saying he would know better than to blurt out something inappropriate when others were on the line.
Trump said in tweets that only ‘dumb’ people believe the version of events that appeared in the Washington Post and chalked the complaint up to ‘harassment.’
‘Another Fake News story out there – It never ends! 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. No problem!’ he said.
‘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. I would only do what is right anyway, and only do good for the USA!’
President Donald Trump denied Thursday that he made an ‘inappropriate’ comment to a foreign leader in a phone call that formed the basis of a reported whistleblower complaint
Schiff told reporters the acting DNI, Joseph Maguire, has made the ‘unprecedented decision not to share the complaint with Congress.’ The New York Times reported that Atkinson did allow that the complaint involved multiple acts going beyond a single pledge to a world leader
One of the paper’s sources said Trump made a ‘promise’ so egregious that it prompted a submission to the intelligence community’s inspector general.
Two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter told the Washington Post about the episode.
One of the officials said the promise was made in a phone call. The name of the foreign leader and the subject of the discussion is unknown. Trump is known to have been in contact with more than a half dozen foreign leaders at the time of the August 12 complaint, though.
Trump was vacationing at his Bedminister, N.J. golf club at the time. He spoke to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson that morning and on two other occasions in the days prior.
The U.S. president also had calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the preceding weeks.
A White House readout of Trump’s call with Putin said they discussed the wildfires in Siberia and trade. But a Kremlin statement suggested they spoke about those topics and normalizing relations between the two nations.
Trump had a July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
Three House Democratic committee chairman, including Schiff, are probing alleged ‘attempts to manipulate the Ukrainian justice system to benefit the President’s re-election campaign and target a possible political opponent,’ and have sought records and transcripts of the call, as well as interactions between Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the Ukrainian government.
Ned Price, a former CIA operative and National Security Council spokesman for Barack Obama, pointed to the discrepancy and guessed in a Tuesday evening tweet that the Putin call inspired the unknown whistleblower to come forward.
The president also met with the Emir of Qatar Tamim Bin Hamad Al Tani, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte just before the whistleblower complaint and exchanged letters with North Korean chairman Kim Jong un.
The scuffle has further implications beyond who Trump spoke to and what he said: the director of national intelligence’s office did not disclose the whistleblower complaint to Congress. Disclosure of such complaints is mandatory.
The whistleblower complaint was first submitted on August 12 to Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson, says House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff.
Last week, Schiff, a California Democrat, accused acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire of improperly withholding the information.
Federal law directs the DNI to transmit a whistleblower complaint to the Congressional intelligence committees within seven days if it is deemed ‘an urgent concern’ by the ICIG.
However, Schiff says Maguire failed to transmit the complaint to Congress by September 2 as the law requires.
On August 26, the ICIG deemed the complaint ‘not only credible, but urgent’ and forwarded it to DNI Maguire, yet it never made its way to Congress, Schiff says.
Rep. Adam Schiff (left) has accused acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire (right) of improperly withholding a whistleblower complaint from Congress
In a September 10 letter to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Schiff demanded the document, and implied that it was being concealed at the direction of the White House to avoid making administration officials look bad.
‘The Committee’s recent experience has heightened concern of improper White House efforts to influence your office and the Intelligence Community,’ Schiff wrote.
But Maguire refused, saying that the complaint involves confidential and potentially privileged communications, Schiff said.
Schiff said that Maguire further argued that the complaint was about someone who was not within the intelligence community, and that the whistleblower statute thus did not apply.
On September 13, Schiff issued a subpoena demanding a copy of the complaint, giving a September 17 deadline.
Maguire refused to respond to the subpoena, triggering Schiff to call a hearing on the matter for Thursday.
Schiff says the committee will ‘do everything necessary’ to get the complaint.
‘The ICIG determined that this complaint is both credible and urgent, and that it should be transmitted to Congress under the clear letter of the law. The Committee places the highest importance on the protection of whistleblowers and their complaints to Congress,’ Schiff said in a statement on Wednesday.