Donald Trump’s promise to a foreign leader so troubled an official in the US intelligence community that it prompted the person to file a whistleblower complaint, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The Post, which cited two former officials familiar with the matter, said it was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver. The communication was a phone call, one former official said, according to the Post.
The 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 requires notification of congressional oversight committees, the Post said.
But the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has refused to share details about the complaint with lawmakers, the paper reported. Maguire has defended his refusal by asserting that the subject of the complaint is beyond his jurisdiction, it said.
Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee, has sought to compel US intelligence officials to disclose the full details of the whistleblower complaint to Congress.
Atkinson is scheduled to appear at a closed hearing of the committee on Thursday morning and Maguire has agreed to testify before the panel in open session a week later, Schiff said in a statement.
“The IC IG 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,” the statement said.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Representatives of the office of the director of national intelligence could not be reached.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-whistleblower
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I think this is going to be HUGE