DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and Co

Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress, former officials say

The whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community, said the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

It was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver, but his direct involvement in the matter has not been previously disclosed. It raises new questions about the president’s handling of sensitive information and may further strain his relationship with U.S. spy agencies. One former official said the communication was a phone call.

The White House declined to comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and a lawyer representing the whistleblower declined to comment.

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of “urgent concern,” a legal threshold that ordinarily requires notification of congressional oversight committees.

But acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire has refused to share details about Trump’s alleged transgression with lawmakers, touching off a legal and political dispute that has spilled into public and prompted speculation that the spy chief is improperly protecting the president.

The dispute is expected to escalate Thursday when Atkinson is scheduled to appear before the House Intelligence Committee in a classified session closed to the public. The hearing is the latest move by committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) to compel U.S. intelligence officials to disclose the full details of the whistleblower complaint to Congress.

Maguire has agreed to testify before the committee next week, according to a statement by Schiff. He declined to comment for this story.

The inspector general “determined that this complaint is both credible and urgent,” Schiff said in the statement released Wednesday evening. “The committee places the highest importance on the protection of whistleblowers and their complaints to Congress.”

The complaint was filed with Atkinson’s office on Aug. 12, a date on which Trump was at his golf resort in New Jersey. White House records indicate that Trump had had conversations or interactions with at least five foreign leaders in the preceding five weeks.

Among them was a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that the White House initiated on July 31. Trump also received at least two letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during the summer, describing them as “beautiful” messages. In June, Trump said publicly that he was opposed to certain CIA spying operations against North Korea. Referring to a Wall Street Journal report that the agency had recruited Kim’s half-brother, Trump said, “I would tell him that would not happen under my auspices.”

Trump met with other foreign leaders at the White House in July, including the prime minister of Pakistan, the prime minister of the Netherlands, and the emir of Qatar.

Trump’s handling of classified information has been a source of concern to U.S. intelligence officials since the outset of his presidency. In May 2017, Trump revealed classified information about espionage operations in Syria to senior Russian officials in the Oval Office, disclosures that prompted a scramble among White House officials to contain the potential damage.

Statements and letters exchanged between the offices of the DNI and the House Intelligence Committee in recent days have pointed at the White House without directly implicating the president.

Schiff has said he was told that the complaint concerned “conduct by someone outside of the Intelligence Community.” Jason Klitenic, the DNI general counsel, noted in a letter sent to congressional leaders on Tuesday that the activity at the root of the complaint “involves confidential and potentially privileged communications.”

The dispute has put Maguire, thrust into the DNI job in an acting capacity with the resignation of Daniel Coats last month, at the center of a politically perilous conflict with constitutional implications.

Schiff has demanded full disclosure of the whistleblower complaint. Maguire has defended his refusal by asserting that the subject of the complaint is beyond his jurisdiction.

Defenders of Maguire disputed that he is subverting legal requirements to protect Trump, saying that he is trapped in a legitimate legal predicament and that he has made his displeasure clear to officials at the Justice Department and White House.

After fielding the complaint on Aug. 12, Atkinson submitted it to Maguire two weeks later. By law, Maguire is required to transmit such complaints to Congress within seven days. But in this case, he refrained from doing so after turning for legal guidance to officials at the Justice Department.

In a sign of Atkinson’s discomfort with this situation, the inspector general informed the House and Senate intelligence committees of the existence of the whistleblower complaint — without revealing its substance — in early September.

Schiff responded with almost immediate indignation, firing off a letter demanding a copy of the complaint and warning that he was prepared to subpoena senior U.S. intelligence officials. The DNI has asserted that lawyers determined there was no notification requirement because the whistleblower complaint did not constitute an urgent concern that was “within the responsibility and authority” of Maguire’s office.

Legal experts said there are scenarios in which a president’s communications with a foreign leader could rise to the level of an “urgent concern” for the intelligence community, but they also noted that the president has broad authority to decide unilaterally when to classify or declassify information.

Revealing how the United States obtained sensitive information could “compromise intelligence means and methods and potentially the lives of sources,” said Joel Brenner, former inspector general for the National Security Agency.

It was unclear whether the whistleblower witnessed Trump’s communication with the foreign leader or learned of it through other means. Summaries of such conversations are often distributed among White House staff, although the administration imposed new limits on this practice after Trump’s disclosures to Russian officials were revealed.

Carol D. Leonnig and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-...9476_story.html

This oligarch will stop anything from happening.

MSNBC says it's a lower level intel official from intel community. They filed the complaint compliant with the rules to the IG and the IG escalated it as credible and urgent to the DNI. The DNI failed to send it to congress within 7 days as per whistleblower rules. Apparently it was about a phone call between Trump and another foreign leader where Trump made a promise.

EDIT: The DNI instead contacted the AG/DOJ seeking guidance and was told they didn't have to report it to congress due to some wording that claims DNI and IG actions in these matters are not reviewable by the judiciary... The IG will be in closed door session with intel committee in the am.

#deepstate
#anonymousismeaningless
#bezosistheenemy
#trumphate+nothingmore
#snitchesgetstitches
#nothingtoseehere

I can’t help but think that this may have been one of the reasons why Bolton bolted.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The great and powerful grand wizard knows all.

I thought he got fired..

An anonymous report about a possible security breach, where someone might have heard the president say something that might be classified, possibly to a foreign leader, that might have revealed something.

That's some first class reporting.

Here comes the “Fake News Squad” defending their dictator.

#2 on my list.
Just like clockwork.

I can't defend something that might have possibly happened, maybe.

There is no 'possibly' happened. The whistleblower report was filed and the IG deemed it credible and urgent and sent it to the DNI. 7 days later congress did not receive it from the DNI as per rules. That much is fact. Only the details of what exactly it is about are yet to be discovered/confirmed.

yes trump, you would say something inappropriate to foreign leaders.

It was reported. That's not fake or false. But keep repeating that same old line. History will not treat your kind well.

jc

its confirmed that the WH AND DoJ has told the IG to withhold whistleblower complaint from congress.

Yeah but......

Yet another blatant scandal and cover up because Trump is somehow above the law.

#mobboss

Lots of things have been reported that aren't true. Collusion for one.

So, a whistle-blower was so concerned about a 2017 phone call, that he didn't report it until 2019. He could have had a weak doj head, an fbi head out to get the pres, and added it to a two year witch hunt if only he'd been more concerned at that time. What a load of hooey.

So you say. But do you know what the man who ran that investigation said?



How can you ever know what the truth was when the witnesses keep lying?

You can't.

Russian interference and the witch-hunt against Trump are two different things. Your quotes are not in context, and should not be used in any report but a false one. Nice usage of the word "probably" again.

You, and the left, have stopped at nothing to get Trump - for well over 2 years. I'd love to list all the things you and the media have claimed would end this presidency. I just don't have the time to type it all out.

Hey, when something sticks, let me know.

Yes. Ignore the facts, put your fingers in your ears and sing 'nah na na nah naaaaaah!' smh

It's worked out very well so far. Lib's accuse, chant 'impeach', collusion, taxes, get us in a nuke war with N. korea..............on and on and on. blah blah blah.

Now all you lefties exclaim, "we got him now!", have joy behar throw her papers, and have sweet dreams about impeachment. If you're looking for reruns, they're on TVland.

Whistleblower complaint about President Trump involves Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter

A whistleblower complaint about President Trump made by an intelligence official centers on Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter, which has set off a struggle between Congress and the executive branch.

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 Rudolph W. 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.

The Democrats’ investigation was launched earlier this month, before revelations that an intelligence official had lodged a complaint with the inspector general. 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.

On Thursday, 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 B. 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.”

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.

In a Sept. 17 letter to intelligence committee leaders, Atkinson wrote that he and Maguire “are at an impasse” over how the whistleblower could contact the congressional committees. Ordinarily, a matter of urgent concern that the inspector general deems credible is supposed to be forwarded to the intelligence oversight panels in the House and Senate.

But Maguire prevented Atkinson from doing so, according to correspondence that has been made public. Atkinson wrote that he had requested permission from Maguire to inform the congressional intelligence committees about the general subject matter of the complaint, but was denied.

Maguire, Atkinson wrote, had consulted with the Justice Department, which determined that the law didn’t require disclosing the complaint to the committee because it didn’t involve a member of the intelligence community or “an intelligence activity under the DNI’s supervision.”

Atkinson faulted the Justice Department’s conclusion “particularly … and the Acting DNI’s apparent agreement with the conclusion, that the disclosure in this case does not concern an intelligence activity within the DNI’s authority.”

Maguire is scheduled to testify before the Intelligence Committee in a public session next Thursday.

In letters to the White House and State Department, top Democrats earlier this month demanded records related to what they say are Trump and Giuliani’s efforts “to coerce the Ukrainian government into pursuing two politically-motivated investigations under the guise of anti-corruption activity” — one to help Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is in prison for illegal lobbying and financial fraud, and a second to target the son of former vice president Joe Biden, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump.

“As the 2020 election draws closer, President Trump and his personal attorney appear to have increased pressure on the Ukrainian government and its justice system in service of President Trump’s reelection campaign, and the White House and the State Department may be abetting this scheme,” the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees wrote, citing media reports that Trump had threatened to withhold $250 million in aid to help Ukraine in its ongoing struggle against Russian-backed separatists.

Lawmakers also became aware in August that the Trump administration may be trying to stop the aid from reaching Ukraine, according to a congressional official.

Giuliani dismissed the reports of the whistle blower and Trump’s “promise” to a foreign leader.

“I’m not even aware of the fact that he had such a phone call,” Giuliani said Thursday. “If I’m not worried about it, he’s not worried about it.”

House Democrats are looking into whether Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to pressure that government outside of formal diplomatic channels to effectively help the Trump reelection effort by investigating Hunter Biden about his time on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.

The filing of the whistleblower complaint has led to what veterans of U.S. spy agencies described as an unprecedented situation with potentially grave consequences for the already troubled relationship between the president and the nation’s powerful intelligence community.

It remains unclear how the whistleblower gained access to details of the president’s calls — whether through “readouts” generated by White House aides or through other means.

Memos that serve as transcripts of such calls are created routinely. But if that is the source in this instance, it would appear to mean that White House aides made a formal record of comments by the president later deemed deeply troubling by the intelligence community’s chief watchdog.

John Wagner, Karoun Demirjian, Robert Costa and Josh Dawsey contributed reporting.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-...9476_story.html

Whistle-Blower Complaint Sets Off a Battle Involving Trump

The complaint, from a member of the intelligence community, remained opaque but involved at least one of the president’s communications with a foreign leader.

WASHINGTON — A potentially explosive complaint by a whistle-blower in the intelligence community said to involve President Trump emerged on Thursday 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 Mr. 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.

The complaint, submitted by a member of the intelligence community to its inspector general, renewed questions about how the president handles delicate information. Mr. Trump defended his actions, and allies described his style with foreign leaders as more freewheeling than typical high-level diplomacy. “I would only do what is right anyway, and only do good for the USA!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.

The controversy first erupted a week ago, when Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, revealed the existence of the complaint and disclosed that the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, had blocked the inspector general from sharing it with Congress, as generally required by law. The inspector general deemed the complaint legitimate and opened an inquiry.

Mr. Maguire’s intervention touched off the latest in a series of clashes between congressional Democrats seeking to conduct oversight and administration officials who they say are stonewalling their requests for information. Democrats accused Mr. Maguire of ignoring the law, possibly to protect Mr. Trump or another high-level official, though intelligence officials insisted that they blocked lawmakers’ access to the complaint in accordance with the law, not politics.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Maguire declined to comment. Andrew P. Bakaj, a former C.I.A. and Pentagon official whose legal practice specializes in whistle-blower and security clearance issues, confirmed that he was representing the official who filed the complaint. Mr. Bakaj declined to identify his client and said he would not disclose details of the complaint.

For nearly a week, the controversy remained opaque.

Then on Wednesday evening, The Washington Post reported that the whistle-blower’s allegations centered on at least one conversation involving Mr. Trump, setting off another frenzy in Trump-era Washington. The inspector general, Michael Atkinson, appeared on Capitol Hill in a closed-door session on Thursday but divulged no specifics beyond saying that the complaint involved multiple actions, according to two officials familiar with his briefing.

He would not say whether the complaint involved the president, according to committee members. But separately, a person familiar with the whistle-blower’s complaint said it involved in part a commitment that Mr. Trump made in a communication with another world leader. No single communication was at the root of the complaint, another person familiar with it said.

The intelligence official filed the formal whistle-blower complaint on Aug. 12. Such a complaint is lodged through a formal process intended to protect a whistle-blower from retaliation.

Though it is not clear how exactly Ukraine fits into the allegations, questions have already emerged about Mr. Trump’s dealing with its government. He spoke on July 25 with President Volodymyr Zelensky and said he was convinced that Ukraine’s new government would quickly improve the country’s image and investigate corruption, which “inhibited the interaction” between the two nations, according to a Ukrainian government summary of the call.

Mr. Trump’s close allies, including his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, were also urging the Ukrainian government to investigate matters that could help Mr. Trump by embarrassing his political rivals, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

According to government officials who handle foreign policy in the United States and Ukraine, Mr. Giuliani’s efforts created the impression that the Trump administration’s willingness to back Mr. Zelensky was linked to his government’s readiness to in turn pursue the investigations sought by Mr. Trump’s allies.

Mr. Giuliani said he did not know whether Mr. Trump discussed those matters with Mr. Zelensky, but argued it would not be inappropriate.

The president has the right to tell another country’s leader to investigate corruption, particularly if it “bleeds over” into the United States, Mr. Giuliani said on Thursday. “If I were president, I would say that,” he added.

Around the same time, a separate issue was brewing. Congressional aides and administration officials who work on Ukraine issues had become concerned that the White House was slow-walking a military assistance package for Kiev, according to people involved in an effort to free up the assistance.

Last week, the two issues merged when Mr. Schiff and two other Democratic House committee chairmen requested the transcript of Mr. Trump’s call with Mr. Zelensky from the State Department and the White House as part of an investigation into whether Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani were misappropriating the American foreign policy apparatus for political gain.

The Democrats indicated they planned to examine whether the delay in the assistance “is part of President Trump’s effort to coerce the Ukrainian government into pursuing politically motivated investigations.”

The next day, Mr. Schiff wrote to Mr. Maguire seeking information about the whistle-blower complaint.

And the following day, the White House released the military assistance to Ukraine, with little explanation.

The unusual disagreement between Mr. Maguire and Mr. Atkinson centers on who is best suited to investigate the whistle-blower’s accusations.

In a letter to the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Atkinson wrote that the complaint falls within the jurisdiction of the director of national intelligence and “relates to one of the most significant and important of the D.N.I.’s responsibilities to the American people.”

Mr. Maguire has not disputed the seriousness of the allegation but determined in consultation with the Justice Department that it was outside the scope of the law requiring whistle-blower complaints be forwarded to Congress. Any accusation that triggers the requirement must involve the funding, administration or operations of an intelligence agency.

Administration officials have shared at least some details of the accusations with the White House, to allow officials to weigh whether to assert executive privilege, an official said.

Some current and former officials defended Mr. Maguire’s decision to consult with the Justice Department and the White House. Any question of whether a presidential communication was subject to executive privilege would be a White House decision, and the Justice Department is supposed to offer legal advice.

“But given the recent history of Justice Department leadership engaging in public messaging that comes across as scripted by the White House, it is not unreasonable to have concerns about the consultation with the department in this instance,” said David H. Laufman, who served as chief of the counterintelligence section in the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Mr. Schiff said he would explore potential recourse with the House’s general counsel to try to force the release of the complaint, including potentially suing for it in court.

The law is “very clear” that the whistle-blower complaint must be handed over to Congress, said Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

“The inspector general determines what level of concern it is,” Mr. King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an interview. “Once the determination is made,” he added, the director of national intelligence “has a ministerial responsibility to share that with Congress — it is not discretionary.”

[Read a pair of letters from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence about the complaint.]

Democrats emerged from Mr. Atkinson’s briefing and renewed their accusation that the Trump administration was orchestrating a cover-up of an urgent and legitimate whistle-blower complaint that could affect national security.

Mr. Schiff told reporters after the briefing that he still did not know the contents of the complaint and had been unable to get an answer to whether the White House was involved in suppressing it.

“I don’t think this is a problem of the law,” he said. “I think the law is written very clearly. I think the law is just fine. The problem lies elsewhere. And we’re determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is, to make sure that the national security is protected and to make sure that this whistle-blower is protected.”

Officials with Mr. Maguire’s office were scrambling to find a compromise with Congress ahead of Mr. Maguire’s scheduled testimony on Sept. 26, according to a senior intelligence official.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel, said on Thursday that he and the committee’s Republican chairman, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, also expected both the inspector general and acting director to brief them early next week and “clear this issue up.”

Some legal experts said it was not obvious how an exchange between Mr. Trump and a foreign leader could meet the legal standards for a whistle-blower complaint that the inspector general would deem an “urgent concern.”

Under the law, the complaint has to concern the existence of an intelligence activity that violates the law, rules or regulations, or otherwise amounts to mismanagement, waste, abuse or a danger to public safety. But a conversation between two foreign leaders is not itself an intelligence activity.

And while Mr. Trump may have discussed intelligence activities with the foreign leader, he enjoys broad power as president to declassify intelligence secrets, order the intelligence community to act and otherwise direct the conduct of foreign policy as he sees fit, legal experts said.

Mr. Trump regularly speaks with foreign leaders and is often unfettered. Some current and former officials said that what an intelligence official took to be a troubling commitment could have been an innocuous comment.

Mr. Trump’s calls with other leaders are unlike anything his predecessors engaged in, one European diplomat said. The president eschews the kind of structured calls of his predecessors and instead quickly moves from the stated topic of the call to others. He will disclose his ideas for forthcoming summit meetings and test ideas and policies in a seemingly casual way, the diplomat said.

But the whistle-blower complaint renewed questions about whether some of his freelance proposals were inappropriate. The accusation, even with few details, quickly gained traction in part because of longstanding concerns among some intelligence officials that the information they share with the president is being politicized.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/us/politics/intelligence-whistle-blower-complaint-trump.html

MSNBC is reporting that this seems to be more involved than a single phone call and there is more to it like a series of events or pattern.

Nobody has clear reporting on the topic of the complaint but it must be bad for somebody high up with the fight they are putting up.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/giuliani-admits-asked-ukraine-biden-024851048.html

It’s a fact now. No longer speculation

He offered to resign, then was fired.

Add Dan Coates to that as well, the current interim DNI is filling his job.

They catch wind of the story, then bail before the crap hits the fan....

Does this satisfy the criteria of high crimes and misdemeanors?

Be careful what you ask for, Pence may be a better Republican alternative.

Here's a hidden gem for arch and fact for DC from this article:

"(Back in May, Ukraine’s prosecutor general said there was no evidence that Biden or his son broke the law.)"

referenced article

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraine-pr...r-investigation

I wonder how much he got paid to say that.

4 years ago I would have said, "hell yes it rises to high crimes and misdemeanors." But with the corruption in this admin and the weak ass do little dems not holding them accountable over and over... I don't even know anymore. But I do know without a doubt Trump is a crook.

It wasn't part of the report. It was an answer he gave to the congressional committee. I'm sure you don't think it should be included that you can't get to the truth when the witnesses are lying because that shows what actually happened and isn't a good look.

This is what happens when facts come out that people don't want to hear. #deepstate

Partly because the dems are lame as and partly because everything is getting blocked by the admin and every hearing is a cluster.

This is our government today. A mess

Oh I know they are blocking the dems, but the dems (many of them) let/helped Barr's confirmation and they don't bring enough heat against McConnell. Trump is a huge issue but it's the other GOPers that empower/enable him that are the real problem at this point.