US President Donald Trump. Picture: AFP / Mandel NGAN
The White House scrambled to “lock down” records of President Donald Trump’s phone call pressing for Ukraine’s interference in next year’s US election, according to an incendiary whistleblower complaint released on Thursday, the latest episode in an intensifying impeachment drama.
The complaint released by Congress caps a stunning week of revelations that have put Trump’s presidency in jeopardy, with his administration, the Justice Department and State Department all engulfed in the mushrooming scandal.
It alleges that White House officials told the whistleblower they had likely “witnessed the president abuse his office for personal gain” in the July call with Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
Democrats have accused Trump of a “mafia-style shakedown” of Kiev by urging Zelensky to investigate the US leader’s political rival Joe Biden — prompting the whistleblower complaint and triggering a congressional impeachment probe.
The whistleblower, who says he or she spoke to multiple US government officials, concluded that Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election.”
“I learned from multiple US officials 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,” the whistleblower said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a chorus of Democratic condemnation of Trump and White House officials alleged to have hidden the call’s full transcript on an electronics record system reserved for classified sensitive information.
“This is a cover up,” she told reporters, in language echoed by several 2020 presidential hopefuls including senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Obama-era cabinet member Julian Castro.
Trump has “betrayed his oath of office, our national security, and the integrity of our elections,” Pelosi said.
The speaker launched an official impeachment inquiry on Tuesday. As of Thursday, a majority of the 435-seat House of Representatives, 218 Democrats and one independent, say they support the probe, a substantial increase from just two weeks ago.
The whistleblower presented the nine-page complaint on August 12 to the inspector general of the intelligence community.
That official, a Trump appointee, found it a credible and of “urgent concern” and forwarded it to the acting Director of National Intelligence.
But DNI Joseph Maguire at first refused to deliver the complaint to Congress, raising alarm among Democrats that members of Trump’s administration were improperly protecting the president.
Trump has acknowledged that he urged Ukraine to launch an anti-corruption probe against Biden and Biden’s son.
On the call Trump said he was enlisting US Attorney General Bill Barr and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani — a private citizen — to coordinate with Ukraine officials on the investigation.
Democrats are demanding that Barr and Giuliani testify before Congress.
Trump says he exerted “no pressure” on Kiev — a claim echoed by Zelensky — and the president took to Twitter Thursday to attack what he called “THE GREATEST SCAM IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN POLITICS.”
Critics say Trump had held up $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, to be released only on condition that it investigate the Bidens.
The non-verbatim record of the call did not show Trump explicitly tying aid to Zelensky probing Biden, and the White House said the complaint showed Trump did “nothing improper.”
“The White House will continue to push back on the hysteria and false narratives being peddled by Democrats,” Trump’s press secretary Stephanie Grisham said.
As Washington digested the latest bombshell allegations, Trump’s spy chief Maguire testified before the House Intelligence Committee about why he originally withheld the complaint from Congress.
Maguire told lawmakers that while he believed the whistleblower had “acted in good faith” and followed the law, the DNI withheld the complaint from Congress because the Trump call was subject to executive privilege.
But Maguire appeared to lend credibility to the anonymous official, acknowledging to lawmakers that “this case is unique and unprecedented.”
Some Republicans have said they are deeply troubled by the burgeoning scandal.
“There is a lot in the whistleblower complaint that is concerning,” House Republican Will Hurd tweeted on Thursday.
“We need to fully investigate all of the allegations.”
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