Acting DNI Director Joseph Maguire: Trump, Ukrainian Whistleblower Complaint ‘Hearsay,’ Not ‘Corroborated’
The whistleblower’s account came out this morning.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday morning.
He answered questions to the best of his ability over the whistleblower report on the phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The House committee released the whistleblower’s unclassified report this morning.
Whistleblower Complaint
We have to remember that the whistleblower never heard any of the information firsthand and read a few articles. It’s all hearsay. From Fox News:
The complaint cites “multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call” and accuses Trump of attempting “to pressure the Ukranian leader to take actions to help the President’s 2020 reelection bid.” It then presents allegations that the White House tried to “restrict access” to records of the call.
“In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. 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–as is customary–by the White House Situation Room,” the complaint says.
The complaint goes on to allege that White House officials said they were “directed” by White House attorneys to remove the transcript of the call from the computer system where they are normally kept. Instead, the transcript was allegedly kept on a different system normally used for classified information.
Trump released the phone call transcript with Zelensky on Wednesday. It showed he did not threaten to withhold aid if Ukraine did not investigate Vice President Joe Biden. It did show he suggested Zelensky investigate Biden.
Zelensky said himself that no one applied pressure to him when it came to Biden.
The Hearing
To no one’s surprise, Chairman Adam Schiff went all drama king, even making up quotes from the phone call transcript. Throughout the hearing, Schiff kept trying to put words into Maguire’s mouth, especially with leading questions.
Maguire almost lost his cool:
But after maintaining his composure for most of the morning, his frustration showed through at the end, when Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., repeatedly pressed him to agree that the matter should be investigated.
Maguire stressed that the committee now has all of the relevant information, including the whistleblower complaint itself that was released publicly Thursday morning, and said it’s up to them to decide how to proceed.
“The horse has left the barn,” Maguire said. “You have all of the information. You have the whistleblower complaint. You have the letter from the ICIG. You have the Office of Legal Counsel opinion and you have the transcript from the president.”
Maguire also acknowledged that the whistleblower’s account is hearsay and no one has corroborated his complaint:
“This is second-hand information. I am not criticizing the whistleblower,” Macguire said. “… I am in no position to tell the committee to do an investigation or not to do an investigation.”
Schiff vowed at the end “we are gonna find out” the backstory, including whether U.S. aid was tied in any way to Trump’s investigation request, which the president denies.
The committee tried to get Maguire to admit to situations that he could not detail like conversations with Trump. It seemed like no one could comprehend why Maguire could not say anything:
Joseph Maguire told several members of the House Intelligence Committee multiple times that his conversations with Trump are “privileged,” as he rebuffed questions about whether he and the president have discussed the whistleblower’s complaint.
Maguire noted that he is a member of the executive branch of the government, and said it “would destroy my relationship with the president in intelligence matters to divulge any of my conversations with the president of the United States.”
Maguire told Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-New York, when asked if he was “denying” that he discussed the complaint with the president, “I speak to the president, and anything I say to the president is confidential.”
The Democrats on the committee tried to put Maguire “on the hot seat” because he did not immediately release the whistleblower complaint to Congress. Again, they could not (or would not) comprehend why it took awhile when it’s quite simple: There is a process (emphasis mine):
Maguire was on the hot seat before the Intelligence Committee because of concerns by Democratic members that he had failed to comply with the law by not turning over that complaint to the committee by a statutory deadline.
Maguire justified his actions by saying, “I was just trying to work through the law the way it was written,” meaning he wanted to determine if the complaint had to be disclosed under the law, and whether there was a possibility that its release to Congress would be blocked because of a claim that its contents were subject to “executive privilege.”
He said he took the complaint to the White House and the Justice Department as part of that review.
“We consulted with the White House Counsel’s Office and we were advised that much of the information in the complaint was, in fact, subject to executive privilege,” Maguire said.
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Comments
Not a “whistleblower.” “Disgruntled Leaker.” “TDS Gossip Spreader.” Many things, but not a whistleblower.
Dem operative
Ditto!
A Bought and Paid for Dem Operative!
Has no one asked whether this person still works for IC?
Clear misuse of the Whistle Blower statute, likely by design. The game by the Democrats is to block the investigation into Biden, not because they love Biden, but because such an investigation will bring to light the massive corruption in Washington, DC where politicians and senior officials use their position to cash in big, usually via their children and spouses while still in office or government service.
To use Biden as an example, but it’s all over DC, how did a man from humble origins who served as a sitting member of congress almost his entire adult life after law school get to become a wealthy multi-millionaire? The pay is not that great. Just lucky in the stock market perhaps?
Now that there is an impeachment inquiry, moving forward with an investigation on Biden in the face of that would be politically very difficult. And there are plenty of corrupt Republicans who do not want light of day onto common corrupt practices. Remember, too, how the media is also roped into this money machine corruption.
Trump is threatening the Holy Cash Cow, also, probably, by design.
RE: … “Just lucky in the stock market perhaps?”
Perhaps Biden has the same financial advisors that gave Hillary a free investment in cattle futures that somehow multiplied by the tens of thousands from $1000 to $10,000 or more in LESS than 1 year…….
TOUCHE! RE: “Trump is threatening the Holy Cash Cow, also, probably, by design.”
Absolutely. You do not drain a swamp until you stop the Cash Inflow into it!
It’s beyond obvious, at this juncture, that the embittered, lawless, infantile, vindictive and totalitarian Dhimmi-crats will stoop to any and all machinations in order to undermine, sabotage and subvert Trump and his Administration, which, by extension, represents the subverting and sabotaging of Presidential election results.
This isn’t about Trump, per se — it’s about the Dhimmis’ total and staunch refusal to concede/share political power, to/with political opposition. That’s it. The Dhimmis are telling American conservatives that they will never be able to wield political power without being subjected to total obstruction and lawless sabotage.
So right Guy.
Did you know that Obama did a coupe and overthrew the Ukrainian government?
Many crimes of the Democrats are now coming to the general public’s notice……
if nothing else, the antics and obstruction tactics of the dems/leftists brings out in stark relief the disturbing truth: they care NOTHING about the welfare of our people, our country, our way of life itself–all that matters is that THEY are in control, THEY are calling the shots, THEY will decide how much(indeed, if any)freedom we will have towards making this country great again–this blatant, slavering lust for power is despicable and it must be stopped and, to borrow their leftist mantra, ” by any means necessary. ”
wake up, ladies and gentlemen
It’s a stretch to call yourself a whistleblower when you haven’t even seen the whistle. Rumor monger is more accurate.
I have begun to ponder this whole exercise as an October surprise by …. the Republicans.
To wit:
The only real arrow in the Democratic quiver is to do to Trump what he did to Hillary – make your opponent so distasteful that no matter how unlikeable you are, you’re still more palatable than he or she. Certainly Elizabeth Warren needs to do this. Her likability rests naturally at about -3, so it’s necessary to make Trump even more undesirable than she.
Cries of racism, et al, have failed in the face of a good economy, Russian collusion failed, obstruction failed. No one seems to really care about his taxes; they’ve passed IRS audit or we’d have heard about it, and who cares how rich (or not) Trump really is? Claims of impeachable conduct are the last avenue of attack to move that important undecided 10 percent of the electorate who decide actually elections. However, impeachment is a one-shot deal. Shot and miss and you can’t try again. Further, there’s a limit to how long you can drag out the timeline. Americans get bored unless you can actually show them some blood.
Thus: this is way too early to start actual impeachment proceedings. They can’t hold the attention of the public for an entire year. The Democrat’s ideal was to hold the election with Trump still under threat of impeachment (Who could vote for a guy who is going to be removed from office shortly into his second term?) remembering it is only that gullible 10 percent whom you have to persuade to vote against him in order to win (vote against Trump as contrasted to voting FOR Warren). Ongoing impeachment hearings would also ideally reduce Republican turn-out while increasing turn-out for Democrats. So smear impeachment hearings right before the election was the plan, with lots of “is there something this rock?” open-ended questions still existing on Election Day.
The Democrats have no smoking gun, and can only hope to find one by rummaging through every drawer in Trump’s life; yet if there were a real impeachable offense they’d have found it in the last two years. So look forward to an entire year of only finding odd socks, and claims that the missing socks were given as gifts to Putin. That, frankly, is going to get boring, and the longer it goes on the less worth each claim will have. By Election Day claims of impeachable offense are going to be a worn-out joke like the one that Uncle Wilber tells EVERY year at Thanksgiving .
Finally to my point: I suspect that, knowing that the Democrats -must- hold an impeachment in order to have any chance of victory, the Republicans have sprung a trap to force the issue now, and on an issue which is
A. Essentially harmless to Trump
B. Harmful to the Democrats
The Democrats leaped into the trap, and are forced to proceed NOW. Their choices are to drag things out which we’ve already seen is a bad idea, or to make short work of this attempt and wait for another opportunity. THAT simply won’t work. They are not going to get two bites on the impeachment apple.
Too long/didn’t read version. The Democrats have gone into battle on an issue and at a time that are poor choices for them.
i agree with everything here and i also thought they jumped the gun. this becomes more like a march surprise, instead of october.
also, don’t you love how quickly the dems and media switched to impeachment and away from climate change. we’ve been told for a solid week that NOTHING is more important. yet now they stopped talking about the climate. even miss green new deal herself seems to have gone silent in favor of ranting about impeachment.
Yes.
You are correct on all points.
The DEMS/RINOS are in TOTAL PANIC MODE now because their
ILLEGAL MONEY BAGS are being Cut Off.
The Dems attack on Trump is so very Kavanaugh-esque. Some Dem herald charging into the chamber waving a complaint and on queue the entire caucus gives a collective gasp.
I’ll bet before November, we’ll see them revisit all Trumps women too.
“on cue”, not on queue.
Well I’ll be. I hope I remember that better than I remember how to spell recommend.
Methinks the DemoRats are on queue too, to tell more lies and do more evil……
Scathing hypocrisy.
After eight years of Obama’s crap.
Disgusting.
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if he said that as part of the intelligence community he evaluates the data received and does not simply accept everything as true because sometimes there is misinformation and fraud deliberately put into the marketplace of ideas? Imagine that. To say it differently, if President Swalwall (sic) had a piece of intelligence that Switzerland was going to attack us would he feel obligated to nuke them into oblivion?
The so-called “whistleblower” complaint is a really bad copypasta letter of Fake News bits.
No matter, the gruberized population will buy anything the corrupt Left tells me.
The “whistleblower” is Deep State operative Sue Gordon, who Trump rejected as DNI director.
Possible, but doubtful. Too high profile. The whole complaint reads as if it were put together by a team of lawyers and the complainer, none of whom were aware of the actual contents of the conversation. Since Susan was PDD (Principal Deputy Director) of National Intel, she probably had access. I would put my money on some nebbish StateDep adviser who was a holdover from the previous administration who may have been looking for a ‘golden parachute’ from a Dem donor, and needed some sort of ‘thing’ to make him stand up above the rest of the unemployed Obama drones. It would take little effort for him to contact a Dem aide to the Senate IC in order for the complaint to be properly formatted and timed.
LAWFARE group wrote it.
RE: “The whole complaint reads as if it were put together by a team of lawyers and the complainer…”
The so called whistleblower complaint:
1. Its written like it was composed by a group of lawyers, and not at all like a single employee of the government became concerned about something.
2. The entire complaint is NOT evidence of anything. It is entirely hearsay on hearsay. It does not even claim that the persons with whom the “whistleblower” spoke had direct personal knowledge of the phone call. (i.e. it does NOT claim he spoke to any of the persons who actually listened to the phone call).
3. The direct an actual evidence regarding the phone call is contained in the transcript of the call which clearly shows NOTHING improper was stated during the call, AND the statements of the two participants in the call (Presidents Trump and Zelensky) who both confirm nothing improper was said or perceived by either participant to the call.
The democrats in congress are disgusting pieces of crap whose agenda is to destroy everything good and right in this country.
LAWFARE – that’s the group most assuredly writing it.
I just hope when they eventually post this video on YouTube that they adjust the volume up. I’ve got my speakers set to 100% and can barely hear.
The Dems seem absolutely dead set on getting the DNI to claim that certain things are breaking the law, when he’s not in the DoJ.
Pelosi twists to impeachment and Trump tries to twist it back to gun control. Gun safety can only be improved by guaranteeing access to guns by every sane person. I’m afraid though, that Ivanka is Trump’s point man on gun control.