President Donald Trump blasts whistleblower over controversial Ukraine phonecall
Democrats say impeachment hearings against Donald Trump could start as early as next week.
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The chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee claimed that the panel could begin impeachment hearings targeting US President Donald Trump as early as next week.
California Democrat Adam Schiff told CNN there would be a “busy couple weeks” ahead even though the rest of the House will be on a two-week recess, with many holding town halls to hear from their constituents about impeachment and other issues.
“I expect subpoenas,” Mr Schiff said, adding that the process will proceed as “expeditiously as possible.”
If the White House stonewalls Congress, Mr Schiff said, “It will strengthen the case on obstruction.”
It came as US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi voiced concern over Mr Trump’s comments suggesting retaliation against people who helped an intelligence whistleblower.
Mr Trump has slammed officials who reported the controversial phonecall to a whistleblower that kicked off the Ukraine controversy as “scum”, likening them to spies who had committed “treason”.
Treason is an act punishable by death in the US.
“I’m concerned about some of the president’s comments about the whistleblower,” Ms Pelosi told MSNBC.
Ms Pelosi also had some choice words for Attorney-General William Barr, who is mentioned in the rough transcript the White House released this week of the July 25 call in which Mr Trump urges Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to work with Barr and with Mr Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
“He’s going rogue,” Ms Pelosi said of the Attorney-General, although the Justice Department insists he was unaware the Republican president had said Mr Barr would help investigate a political rival.
“IT WAS A PERFECT CONVERSATION WITH UKRAINE PRESIDENT!â€
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2019
Sounding more and more like the so-called Whistleblower isn’t a Whistleblower at all. In addition, all second hand information that proved to be so inaccurate that there may not have even been somebody else, a leaker or spy, feeding it to him or her? A partisan operative?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2019
In another dramatic day playing out against the backdrop of United Nations Leaders’ week in New York, White House officials and the President were accused of trying to bury evidence of Mr Trump’s request for Ukraine to probe his main political rival.
The allegations were contained in an explosive complaint made by an anonymous CIA agent working in the White House, detailing his concerns about the July 25 phonecall between Mr Trump and newly installed Ukraine president Mr Zelensky and subsequent efforts by officials to obscure its contents.
“In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple US government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election,” the man wrote.
“This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals.”
The complaint, which was written in August but released Friday, said it drew from the accounts of several White House officials who told of being so concerned about the call there was an effort to “lock down” all records of it “especially the word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced”.
“This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in that call,” he wrote.
“There was already a ‘discussion ongoing’ with White House lawyers about how to treat the call because of the likelihood, in the officials’ retelling, that they had witnessed the president abuse his office for personal gain.”
The whistleblower, who conceded he was not a direct witness to the behaviour he described, detailed how officials tried to hide evidence of the call, including a transcript compiled in the White House situation room.
“The transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature. One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective,” he wrote.
Democrats this week launched an impeachment inquiry over the affair and the release of the complaint has provided a road map for how events may play out.
“This is a cover-up,” said Democrat house speaker Nancy Pelosi of the complaint.
Mr Trump has attempted to shrug off the controversy, describing the conversation as “perfect” and a “nothing call”.
But he launched a scathing attack on his perceived enemies at a New York event yesterday, likening their acts to treason — which can attract the death penalty.
“I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information because that’s close to a spy,” Mr Trump said.
“You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”