The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel determined that the whistleblower on the phone call with President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not present an “urgent concern” nor do officials have to hand over the account to Congress.
The intelligence community inspector general also discovered the whistleblower “showed indications of ‘political bias’ and was ‘in favor of a rival candidate'” of Trump’s.
Despite that conclusion, the House and Senate have the whistleblower’s account.
The whistleblower, who remains unknown, claimed that Trump may have violated “campaign-finance laws” during a phone call with Zelensky.
Based on hearsay, the whistleblower said Trump threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine if the country’s new prosecutor did not investigate Vice President Joe Biden, who urged Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shoklin over his investigation into Burisma Holdings. Hunter Biden, Joe’s son, sat on the board.
The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) reviewed the complaint, but found credibility even though they found “some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate.”
The ICIG forwarded the complaint to the DOJ. Those officials found that the “urgent concern” did not fall under the statute “because it does not concern ‘the funding, administration or operation of an intelligence activity’ under the authority of the DNI [Director of National Intelligence].”
Since it does not match the statute the DOJ does not have to hand over the whistleblower’s report to Congressional intelligence committees.
We learned this morning that Trump did not threaten Zelensky in any way if he did not investigate Biden. He suggested Zelensky, who happily agreed. During a press conference, Zelensky said no one pressured him to agree to the investigation.
Then news came out that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire threatened to resign if Trump’s administration stopped him from testifying before Congress on Thursday.
Axios also reported that the House and Senate received the whistleblower’s account at 4PM ET today.
DOJ Report on Alleged Whistleblower and Complaints Against President Trump by Legal Insurrection on Scribd
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY