The whistleblower complaint centering around President Trump's conversations and dealings with Ukraine has been unclassified. To read the complaint in its entirety, click here.
In the complaint, the whistleblower alleges that President Trump is "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election." The whistleblower also alleges the interference includes "pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President's main domestic political rivals."
Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, a Trump appointee, found the complaint to be credible and of "urgent concern." Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire told the House Intelligence Committee the whistleblower "did the right thing" and "followed the law every step of the way." Separately, the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion on the whistleblower complaint noted the following: "Although the ICIG's preliminary review found some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complaintant in favor of a rival political candidate, the ICIG concluded that the complaint's allegations nonetheless appeared credible."
The whistleblower admits in the complaint that the "information provided herein was relayed to me in the course of official interagency business," and that they "were not a direct witness to the events described." However, the complaint also notes that in almost all cases, "multiple officials recounted fact patterns that were consistent with one another."
The whistleblower states that they are "concerned that these actions pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine the U.S. Government's efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in U.S. elections." That, along with the belief that the incidents described in the complaint constitute "a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, or violation of law or Executive Order" that "does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters," are the basis for generating the complaint.
In the complaint, the whistleblower proceeds to describe the July 25th phone call between President Trump and Ukranian President Zelenskyy as it was relayed to them by multiple White House officials. When compared to the memorandum of the call released by the White House, the description in the complaint is generally on-point, although some may quibble with how certain aspects of the call are portrayed.
A notable new development found in the complaint involves this specific allegation: "Multiple U.S. officials stated that senior White House officials had intervened to 'lock down' all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced by the White House Situation Room." The complaint also states that the "transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature." That was found to be problematic because the call, according to one White House official, "did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective." In the appendix to the complaint, the whistleblower expands upon this allegation. They state that "according to White House officials I spoke with, this was 'not the first time' under this Administration that a Presidential transcript was placed into this codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive - rather than national security sensitive - information."
The rest of the complaint deals with issues involving Ukrainian officials, President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Attorney General William Barr, ambassadors, and others. There's also a description of circumstances and events leading up to the July 25th phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. In addition to the information the whistleblower received from officials, they also include public reporting and statements made by those named in the complaint.
Finally, the appendix to the complaint lays out a timeline of how aid to Ukraine was halted before President Trump's call with the Ukrainian president. The whistleblower states that "neither the Office of Management and Budget nor National Security Council staff knew why this instruction had been issued."
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