Whistleblower says White House tried to conceal Trump-ukraine call

Intelligence Chief defends Concealment

SWhite House officials tried to “lock down” all details of a phone call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president, according to a whistleblower complaint against the U.S. president.

In the call, Mr Trump pushed Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his leading domestic political rival, Joe Biden.

The newly released complaint says the call transcript was not stored in the usual computer system. Instead it was stored in a separate system used for classified information.

Nancy Pelosi, the most senior Democrat, announced that the party was pushing ahead with a formal impeachment inquiry against the Republican president.

She accused Mr Trump of seeking foreign help in the hope of smearing Mr Biden - who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election - and of using military aid to Ukraine as a bargaining tool.

Mr Trump acknowledged that he personally blocked nearly $400m in military aid to Ukraine days before he spoke to Mr Zelensky, but denied that it was to pressure the Ukrainian leader into investigating Mr Biden. President Trump has dismissed the impeachment proceedings as a “hoax” and a “witch-hunt”, and has been tweeting after the complaint was publicly released.

But under questioning by the House committee yesterday, Mr Maguire said he believed the whistleblower had acted in “good faith” and “did the right thing”.

The now unclassified document characterises the president’s conduct as a “serious or flagrant problem, abuse, or violation of law”. Meanwhile, acting director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire yesterday defended his handling of the whistleblower complaint at the center of controversy surrounding the call between president Donaldtrump and the leader of Ukraine.

Maguire explained that he was constrained by concerns about executive privilege and a Justice Department opinion, which concluded that the complaint did not meet the statutory definition mandating Congressional notification.

Maguire told the House Intelligence Committee that immediately upon receiving the complaint from the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), he was struck that the complaint centered on the conversation between the president and a foreign leader, which is subject to executive privilege.

Maguire consulted with White House counsel, who informed him that the complaint included privileged content.

Maguire told lawmakers he did not have the authority to waive executive privilege. Thus, even after the Justice Department informed him that he had the discretion to inform Congress, Maguire continued to work with the White House to resolve executive privilege concerns.

The transcript showed that Trump did not exert any pressure or float the possibility of a quid-pro-quo.