Trump Ukraine call: Report by whistleblower released
White House tried to lock down records of call, says complaint
WASHINGTON: A whistleblower report released on Thursday said President Donald Trump not only abused his office in attempting to solicit Ukraine’s interference in the 2020 US election for his own political benefit, but that the White House also tried to “lock down” evidence about that conduct.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives Intelligence Committee released a declassified version of the report, which had triggered a raging controversy and prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to launch a formal impeachment inquiry into the Republican president.
The report said Trump acted to advance his personal political interests, and that White House officials intervened to shift evidence to a separate system.
At a hearing before the committee after the release of the document, the top US intelligence official said the whistleblower had acted in good faith and followed the law in bringing the complaint. “I think the whistleblower did the right thing. I think he followed the law every step of the way,” acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire said.
Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner, former vice president Joe Biden, in coordination with US attorney general William Barr and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, according to a summary of a July telephone call released by the Trump administration on Wednesday.
“I am deeply concerned that the actions described below constitute ‘a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, or violation of law or executive order’ that ‘does not include differences of opinion concerning public policy matters,’ consistent with the definition of an ‘urgent concern’,” the whistleblower report said.
The whistleblower’s concerns did not end with Trump’s conversation with Zelenskiy. The next day, the whistleblower report said, special representative for Ukraine negotiations Kurt Volker and ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland met with Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian political figures and advised them “about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the president had made of Mr Zelenskiy”.